Over the river and through the woods
by mousie tongue
Summary: They say the most challenging prey is that which has been trained as a hunter. William Brandt is about to experience that first hand. Gen, Brandt-centric team fic.
1. Chapter 1

This is Will!whump, plain and simple.

The characters you recognize and the IMF belong to Paramount Pictures; I am only borrowing them for this story. I am making no profit from it and no harm is intended.

Story contains violence and strong language.

* * *

Over the river and through the woods

"Mmm-hmmm."

The chairman flicked through the summation pages of the report with barely-concealed indifference. "Interesting, and quite a lot of - _detailed_ - food for thought. The Sub-Committee will review this information thoroughly and discuss the opinions present, and in due course will forward any consensus reached to the Senior Oversight Committee for their reaction to the findings." He kicked lightly at the floor beneath the long, polished table, setting his chair rolling smoothly backwards.

Around him, the other members of the Sub-Committee rustled into motion, straightening, taking last gulps from their water glasses, tucking folders into briefcases and scooping phones out of pockets and purses. Belatedly, the chairman leaned up to the microphone again and, over the rising murmur in the gallery, rattled off, "The Sub-Committee thanks you for your input, Agent, er, Brandt."

From his seat below the podium, William Brandt rolled his eyes. He placed his hands flat on the tabletop and straightened his arms, pushing to his feet. Beside him, Agent Ellisa James snorted, not bothering to moderate the sound. "Those weren't _opinions_, you fossilized windbag, they were cold, hard facts. Facts that agents are in danger, every day, while you _review_..."

"I know, I know." Will swiped his notes into a pile, resisting the urge to sweep them right off the table into the wastebasket, for all the good they'd done here.

"I'll give him 'food for thought', the slimy dickweasel." Ellisa shoved to her feet, still fuming, and Will choked back a slightly hysterical bubble of laughter.

"Now, now. That's The Honorable Slimy Dickweasel to the likes of us." He tugged his tie and shifted his shoulders, unsticking his shirt from his back. Ethan had been noncommittal about the chances of Will's testimony being positively received, and it looked like his unspoken doubts had been right.

Still, having the higher-ups' lack of concern displayed so openly was pretty damn deflating.

Grumbling, Ellisa slung her bag over her shoulder and waited for Will to join her in following the last of the observers filing out of the auditorium. In the corridor, she paused while the heavy door thumped shut behind them, and Will could see her mentally shake off the day's disappointment. "Hey, listen, Tara and Michelle rented a place on the Eastern Shore for the month, and a bunch of us are driving out for the weekend. Why don't you grab a swimsuit and a toothbrush and tag along."

The idea made Will hesitate. Sun-warmed sand, empty with the lateness of the season, rhythmic shushing waves, a cold beer to hand... The last time he'd been on a beach, he'd been under heavy small arms fire; the time before that, he'd been in the Pacific Northwest and it had been damp, chilly, and mud had sucked at his shoes while he paced a fog-shrouded shore.

"C'mon." Ellisa nudged him with an elbow while digging through her bag. "There'll be crabs. A bonfire. Someone always brings fireworks, we can blow off steam with some pretty explosions." She unearthed her keys with a muted 'Ha!' and waved them, jangling, at Will. "You know you want to."

Will smiled, a little wanly. "I do, but..."

"But nothing! You seeing someone, is that it? Bring 'em along, the more the merrier. The house is huge."

"No, there's no one. I just need..." He rubbed his neck, scruffing up the short hair at the back of his head, then rolled his shoulders. His neck was still too tense to crack. "I need a quiet weekend, sorry. Alone. Not fit for human company right now."

"Okay." Ellisa took his refusal with cheerful grace. "But next weekend I expect you to show up, by yourself or with company. There aren't too many more good beach weekends left." She gave him a playful poke.

"Barring a sudden mission, it's a deal." Will watched her toss a wave over her shoulder and stride off down the corridor. He sighed as he turned toward the nearest exit. _Barring a sudden mission..._ That was the sticking point, wasn't it? There would always be a mission. Ethan would lead them back from the field, exhausted, beat to hell, craving the kind of rest that would only come from extended downtime... and then, through a combination of boredom and seriously misplaced altruism, Ethan would start getting antsy. He'd obsessively scan the international status updates that pinged their phones and send off short, pointed texts to headquarters. 'Is anybody watching the Cairo sit? Buenos Aires is a mess. Arizona border is heating up- anybody covering it?'

Before they knew it, Ethan would be sending parameters of another mission to their phones.

Thick, late-summer air enveloped Will as he pushed through the door. The walkway he headed down was deserted, due, he knew, to both the odd hour- mid-afternoon, too late for lunchbreak and too early for day's end- and to the distance of the parking lot it led to. Most IMF staffers liked to park in the lots adjacent to the complex, even if they had to circle the aisles like vultures before they found a space. Will always chose the northwest parking lot; sure, it was a bit of a hike away, but a brisk walk at the beginning or end of a bureaucracy-filled day could bleed off tension, and the walkway itself was tree-lined and pleasant, almost park-like. Besides, jockeying for position in the crowded nearer lots made Will cranky.

And Benji was always chiding him for being too cranky anyway, so why make it worse.

The walkway curved down a gentle slope and around a thicket of ornamental trees before spilling him out into the open expanse of the parking lot. Cicadas sang in the still air and heat radiated off the asphalt. Will hurriedly dug out his keys and opened the driver's side doors to air out the interior. He peeled off his suit jacket and tie and tossed them both onto the back seat.

He sat behind the wheel for a minute, unbuttoning his cuffs and folding them back over his forearms, thinking. Thursdays when he was in-house were usually dedicated to conferences, meetings, or hearings before one committee or another, like today's exercise in futility. Tedious, mind- and butt-numbing, but in compensation staff could leave early once the meetings concluded. Will cut his eyes to the dashboard clock and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Normally he'd take a roundabout route out of Langley, taking back roads to eventually get to his townhouse, where he could put his feet up and eat out of a take-out carton, with the TV for background noise. Today...

Today the Sub-Committee meeting had taken more out of him than he'd anticipated. He'd poured a lot of effort and yeah, _passion_, into his recommendations for a little less reliance on shiny gadgets and tech and a little more on old-fashioned research and analysis. To have it brushed aside- when both he and Ellisa were in the position of having worked both in R and A and in the field- was demoralizing.

Will was tired. He'd barely been home since Easter. And even when he was, a low-level current needled beneath his skin, giving him the nagging feeling that he was being disloyal for trying to relax.

Ethan tended to have that effect on people.

So he could ditch the leisurely route, take the Beltway instead, and be home a good forty-five minutes sooner, to get started on that disloyalty.

The longer drive usually mellowed him in a way that the faster one couldn't, though.

Will let out a long breath and started the car. Long way it was, then. He rolled out of IMF's parking lot and turned left.

He drove with the windows down, warm air rushing past and sweeping the cobwebs out of his head. Shadows from the trees lining the roadside flickered like an old film reel; Will realized he was automatically pressing the accelerator to the floor and he slowed, easing off his near-frantic speed.

It was a nice day, he should enjoy what was left of it. He'd pick up Chinese from Golden Bowl, something with some heat to it, and maybe, finally, head down to his condo pool for a long-neglected swim.

And then, just over the border into Maryland, the routine drive became anything but.

On a stretch of quiet, two-lane roadway, with cow pastures on either side, Will came upon another car. It was the first he'd seen since the last turnoff... and it was nose-first in a ditch.

He braked, slotting his own car in behind the crashed one, and switched on his hazard lights. There weren't any skid marks and the vehicle wasn't resting against any sign post, fence post, or tree; the ditch wasn't deep and the rear of the vehicle was canted up at only a shallow angle. Still, Will couldn't see anyone moving around, in or out of the car. He threw open his door and sprinted forward.

The car was an SUV, a dust-dulled silver with a 'Maywood Elementary' decal in the back window and a round soccer ball magnet on the hatchback. Maryland plates. The window glass was darkly tinted, but when Will approached the driver's side, that window was rolled down and he could see inside, where a woman was slumped on the steering wheel. The engine was idling quietly and the passenger seat was empty.

"Ma'am?" Will lurched down the side of the ditch, his leather dress shoes sliding on the grass. He was already reaching automatically for his phone with one hand while the other fell to the door panel to catch himself. "Ma'am, can you hear me? Are you all right?"

The woman sat up, straight dark hair falling back to reveal a pale, narrow face. Green eyes- true green, not hazel, Will noted with a detached corner of his brain- settled on Will, flicked over his face... and then bulged with sudden panic. She made a high-pitched keening noise.

"Are you injured?" Will skidded to a stop against the SUV's side. "I'm calling 911."

"No! Wait!" Still wide-eyed, the woman twisted in her seat, straining against her shoulder belt. "My _baby_! Where's my baby? I can't hear him crying! Oh my god!"

Will grabbed the rear door handle, rocking it fruitlessly- locked. The woman was making frantic hiccupping noises, clawing ineffectually at her seatbelt's buckle. "Unlock the door!" Will cried.

"My baby! Find my baby!" She scrabbled at the inside of the door but no accompanying 'click' signaled the locks' release. "Help me!"

Will shoved his phone back into his pocket and seized the edge of the door, hoisting himself up enough to peer into the back seat. An empty child safety seat was on the passenger side; its straps lay limp and unbuckled against the padding. The seat behind the driver was empty, and Will couldn't see the SUV's floor. "_Unlock the doors!_" he cried again, picturing a baby flung from its seat to the floor in the crash. He stretched, intending to boost himself over the door and reach down, feeling his way to the lock buttons himself. His hands knotted on the sill...

The woman's breathless flailing ceased abruptly. Will snapped his head up; she was gazing at him calmly, almost serenely. Her right hand dropped to cover his where it gripped the edge of the door, squeezing slightly as if _she_ were trying to offer comfort to _him_.

_Wrong, this is all wrong,_ Will thought. He wrenched free of the woman's grip and threw himself back, away from the SUV.

The back of his right hand was cold, as if he'd pressed it to sub-zero metal. That observation had barely registered before the cold swept up his arm and around his ribcage in a wide band. Will stumbled backward, heels slipping on the slope of the ditch. His arm was dead now, numbed; he reached with his left hand for the gun at the small of his back and the cold shot along his spine, up, from the back of his ribs, and down.

The world tilted, he felt an impact at his back, and suddenly he was looking at blue sky. Blue sky, fathomless blue, clear and deep like the waters of the pool he'd intended to swim in...

Blackness swept in from the edges of his vision, shrinking the blue to a pinprick spark that popped out of existence.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the next installment in "Let's thump poor William Brandt for a while". This chapter came together pretty quickly, and I can't promise that'll always happen. But I will update as often as I can. Thank you for reading! It's really appreciated.

* * *

A bird was whistling.

_Pwee-pwee, pwee-pwee, pwee-pweee!_ A pause. _Pwee-pwee, pwee-pwee, pwee-pweee!_ A pause. _Pwee-pwee_...

The sound faded in to his consciousness so gradually he couldn't tell how long he'd been hearing it.

But now that he'd noticed it, it was as persistently irritating as a dripping faucet.

_Pwee-pwee, pwee-pwee, pwee-pweee!_

He was on his back, on a firm but not uncomfortable surface. It was quiet- except for the damned bird- and still- except for a brush of air across his skin.

His mouth was dry; a taste/scent like Freon coated the back of his throat.

His head hurt. Badly.

He shifted, cautiously, experimentally, and the rasp of fabric against skin was abnormally loud to his strangely sensitized hearing.

He wasn't restrained, though.

He wasn't sure why that thought should even have occurred to him, but the fact that he wasn't did bring a small measure of comfort.

The bird (a cardinal?) gave a last, truncated whistle and took wing, with a 'skritch' of claws and a rustle of feathers that was disconcertingly audible. The faint breeze he could feel drifting past him sounded like a gale force wind against his eardrums and the light pressing on his closed eyelids was painfully bright.

His thoughts were skipping along the surface of his brain, slipping away when he tried to pin them down. _Who...? How...?_

He lay still for another stretch of time.

He surfaced from the effort of grasping _just exactly what was going on_ to the realization that the gratingly loud sounds pounding his ears had diminished. He shifted and the fabric beneath him rustled, but faintly now, not as if someone was dragging a metal rasp over a microphone. The blaze behind his eyelids seemed to have subsided, as well as the vice around his skull.

William Brandt, IMF team member, field agent, former analyst, eased his eyes open and glanced around.

A room, pine-paneled like the mountain cabins of his childhood vacations, and small, not much larger than the bed he lay on. A tiny square window, open from the top by three inches, high on the wall above his head. Probably the source of the birdsong and breeze. It was covered by heavy metal mesh, and Will could see the shadows of bars, also.

Slowly he rolled his head to take in the rest of the room. An object poked up above the foot of the bed; beyond it was a door- heavy, no visible hinges or handle, a slot near the floor and a safety-glassed peephole window two-thirds of the way up. A recessed light fixture, unlit, was behind more of the mesh in the center of the ceiling.

Will's arms lay flat at his sides; he rubbed his fingers against the surface of the bed and felt thin cloth covering pliable vinyl. He slid his hands outward; the right one bumped up against the wall, the left dropped down a few inches and encountered concrete floor, cool and slightly gritty. The bed was merely a thick pallet laid on it, without a bedframe or blanket. He moved his hand again, bumped a plastic object that teetered, and raised his head.

A water bottle. Thirst, banked while Will finished waking up, suddenly reasserted itself viciously. He closed his hand around the bottle and reeled it in.

Just an ordinary Poland Springs water bottle, the cap still sealed. He pushed to a sitting position so he could drink and realized he was naked except for his shorts.

He'd been wearing clothes... before... hadn't he?

Yeah, of course he had.

But when he tried to remember _what_ exactly, and when he'd had them, the memory slid away, elusive as chasing minnows with his fingers.

Will turned the bottle upside down without knowing why he did so; and then his knowledge caught up with his action and he knew he was looking for a droplet to leak out, to show where a needle-hole could indicate the bottle had been tampered with.

Nothing.

He slid his thumb beneath the label and stripped it off; there were no odd marks or residue under it. The water inside stayed clear and colorless when he shook it.

IMF's training had taught him that, he knew. He could remember his recruitment, the training and bootcamp, the years spent as a field agent and the ones as a desk jockey. He knew he was back in the field again, could remember the last mission clearly- the objective, the operation, Benji's delight at being in Scotland despite the damp chill, Jane's impatience to wrap things up because she had a wedding to go to. Ethan had done a glory-hounding flying leap off the boat and Will had had to follow with a knife when Ethan had gotten snagged by a net; it was really aggravating to end up in freezing water yet again.

They'd made it home in one piece, though. Debriefed. He'd run errands and gone shopping- the farm stand was overflowing with produce and they'd tucked a free zucchini into the bag along with his tomatoes.

There'd been paperwork. And notes to organize for a presentation he was going to give in the days after returning stateside. He'd left open the slider to his balcony while he worked from home, and the sounds of the nearby high school marching band practicing had drifted in along with the balmy evening air.

That was where the clear memories ended, though.

Had he given the presentation? Had he even gone in to headquarters the day after that evening's work?

Will cracked open the water bottle. He breathed in- no odor- and took a purposely small sip- no taste beyond clean liquid.

He was parched, and he'd taken what reasonable precautions he could. He tilted the bottle and nearly emptied it in one long draught.

The water cleared away the last of his mental fog. He'd been drugged, that was clear, but how, and when, and by whom, was lost in a mess of fleeting, disjointed images- little flashes of sight and sound with no context.

He slid his feet off the pallet and worked his way upright. No dizziness, no nausea. The last of the fierce headache evaporated.

There wasn't much more to see once he was on his feet. The object at the foot of the bed was a plastic camping toilet; a half-dozen packets of wet wipes lay on the floor beside it. There was a second water bottle by the door, so Will walked over and examined it as he had the first. It seemed untampered with as well, so he drained the first and kept the full one as he made a full circuit of the room.

Single window, single door. Floor, four walls, ceiling. There weren't any visible cameras, but that didn't mean they weren't there. The door was solid metal, handleless, and locked. The peephole window was blocked by something on the far side. Will got down on the floor and tried to peer through door's slot- like in prisons for sliding food trays through- but it was covered by a metal flap that didn't budge beneath his probing fingers.

He tried the window over the bed next. It was high on the wall, and there was just enough of a lip below it that he could reach overhead and grasp it, hauling himself up. He braced one forearm along it and his toes against the wall. The mesh covering was welded to a metal frame; the bars were sunk into concrete. The lip of the window ledge was too narrow to offer much support and after a swift glance, Will was forced to slide down. He reached and jumped again and this time got a brief glimpse of tall trees, close to the building imprisoning him, and the tops of some underbrush, before his weight pulled him down once more.

Deciduous trees, in full, late-summer leaf. That and the temperature and the cardinal hinted he was probably in a temperate zone, Northern Hemisphere.

Somewhere rural. The window being left open meant no one cared if he shouted- there wouldn't be anyone to hear him.

There was no point to kicking up a fuss. For now, the best he could do was conserve his energy, stay alert, and wait.

Will settled on the pallet with his back against the wall, legs outstretched, water bottle clasped loosely in his hands.

Hours passed. The light in the room brightened and dimmed subtly as the sun moved behind the trees. Will sipped water and got up now and then to pace the room, stretch, do pullups from the window ledge and pushups on the floor. He could hear birds- robins and blue jays mostly, sparrows, another cardinal; crows also, calling back and forth from a distance, and a catbird, nearer. Once the staccato tapping of a woodpecker, and later, far away, the sharp yelp of a fox.

Rural. Forested. Remote.

And then a door clanged open, then shut.

Will was on his feet before the reverberations died away, springing to a vantage point just short of the door. Footsteps- heavy, likely booted- vibrated the floor beneath the bare soles of his feet.

There was a rattle, and the covering blanking out the window flipped back briefly, and then closed again before he could see out. Another rattle and the metal plate covering the door slot slid back.

""Hey!" Will said sharply. "Who's there?"

There was no answer. A cardboard tray holding a disposable plate, napkin, and bowl was pushed through the slot, followed by four flattish foil packets.

"Who are you? Why are you keeping me here?"

Still no answer. The metal flap started to slide closed again and Will flung himself forward to peer through it.

Not fast enough. The flap clicked, blocking any view of what might be behind the door. "Hey!" Will shouted. "Who's there? What do you want?"

Nothing. The footsteps receded; the unseen door clanged and silence descended.

Will knelt for a moment with his face pressed to the door. He thought he could hear- or maybe feel was more accurate- a low-pitched mechanical humming coming through the metal and concrete. Like from heavy-duty HVAC equipment, or a server room... or a generator.

Generator would make sense if he was being held in the ass-end of nowhere.

After another full minute of listening, he rolled to a seated position, forearms propped on his upraised knees and head drooping. Drew in a breath. Breathed out.

He'd been here- _awake_ here, anyway- less than a day. Except for the drugs, he hadn't really been hurt. The room wasn't unpleasant, just bare and locked, and he'd been given water. He breathed in again, catching new scents; now he'd been given food as well. Will raised his head and nudged the tray closer.

Some kind of rich stew in a the Styrofoam bowl. Thick slices of bread and a pile of carrot and celery sticks on the foam plate. No utensils, even plastic ones, but, incongruously, a generous square of chocolate chip cookie bar.

As if it were a cafeteria lunch at sleepaway camp. It even came with bug juice- Will gathered up the foil packets containing juice and tossed them on the bed. The cardboard tray was flimsy; he had to lift it carefully so it didn't crumple when he moved to sit cross-legged on the pallet.

Whoever was holding him wasn't taking any chances of him fashioning a weapon.

The stew was venison; Will tipped the bowl and drank it down, then mopped the bowl with the bread, which tasted homemade. Someone living off the land, maybe? Survivalists? Anarchists?

Was he chosen randomly, or because someone knew who his employer was and held a grudge?

Will finished the food, wiped his mouth, and set the tray on the floor beside him. He scooted back to sit against the wall again. The room dimmed as twilight fell; he guessed it to be around eight o'clock. And as the light fled, so did the warmth- the air flowing through the window chilled rapidly.

A long night stretched ahead of him.

Just as real darkness enveloped the room, two things happened. The overhead light clicked on, startling Will enough that he jumped slightly.

And a car was approaching.

Will sprang up and stood beneath the window, head cocked to listen. A big engine, moving slowly. Taking a while in its approach, so probably traversing a long drive or roadway. Tires crunching over gravel, so probably unpaved. The engine grew louder, then faded again- the car had approached, then passed, the building Will was held in. He hadn't seen the sweep of headlights, so the drive wasn't too close to the building. He stood listening for long, long minutes but heard nothing more- no voices, no doors slamming.

The car didn't leave again, either.

The unseen door clanged open/shut roughly an hour later. Will had sunk down to the pallet once more; now he shot to his feet again, hands tightening involuntarily to fists. Footsteps marched down the hall, two pairs this time. The covering on the peephole window swung away and Will saw a face behind it, just visible behind the thick glass. It stared for several beats and then dipped away. A key clicked, and the lock tumbled open.

Will stepped to the side, feet apart, hands fanned from his body in an unresistant stance, just as the door swung inward. A man burst through- Will's height but broader, carrying a scoped rifle and dressed in S.W.A.T gear. Military boots, polished to a hard shine, fingerless gloves, a dark blue cap pulled backward on his head. "On your knees!" he barked. "Down! On your knees!"

Will dropped. Without being prompted, he laced his fingers behind his head. Blue Cap swept him with a glance, then the room, then returned his gaze to Will. The rifle was raised, pointed at him. Only after another beat did Blue Cap take one step out of the doorway to stand at ready alertness.

The man who entered behind him was taller, thin, with hollowed cheeks and a prominent, beak-like nose. A fringe of closely-shorn grey hair ringed the bald dome of his head. He stared down that nose at Will with cold dark eyes.

"William Brandt. IMF agent of the United States government."

Bald Man spoke with a hint of New York accent coloring his words; New York Italian, Will thought, and not Brooklyn or Bronx, more like Long Island.

He was probably not being held on Long Island, though.

It was hard to look dignified when you were nearly naked, down on your knees with your hands locked behind your head, but Will gave it his best shot. He raised his chin and met Bald Man's flat gaze squarely. "That's me, yeah. And you are?"

If he expected an angry reaction for his challenging tone, he didn't get it. Bald Man replied evenly, "Welcome to The Lodge, Mr. Brandt. I arranged for your stay here." He inclined his head in a genteel little nod. "I am the Coordinator."

"Coordinator, huh?" Will unlaced his fingers and started to lower his arms. "You coordinate what, exactly? Kidnappings?"

Blue Cap leapt forward the instant Will's arms dropped. "Hands up!" he screamed, rifle leveled at Will's forehead. "Up! Up! On your head!"

Bald Man- the Coordinator- _tsked_ as Will instantly complied. "It's for your own safety that you remain compliant, Mr. Brandt. We- an assistant and I- have thoroughly researched you and conducted a deep-level background check. I'm very familiar with your skill-set." He gestured at the pallet. "But as long as you understand that- while regrettable and wasteful- I _will_ have you killed if you attempt to use any of those skills on me, you may move to the bed to be more comfortable while we talk."

Will glanced from the imperturbable face of the Coordinator to the stormier one of Blue Cap. Slowly, very slowly this time, he unlaced his fingers and eased his hands out, away from his body. Blue Cap, eyes burning, remained alert but motionless, so Will drew one leg up and pushed himself off his knees. Arms still outspread, he backed slowly to the pallet.

"All the way back!" Blue Cap snapped, with a sharp motion of the rifle barrel. "Sit! Hands behind your back, shoulders on the wall. Legs spread- wider! You shift 'em, you get a bullet to the brain."

Will settled into the dictated position. This was easier on his knees, but he was still looking up at the Coordinator. The other man towered above Will.

The Coordinator rested the heels of his hands on his hipbones, fingers tucked into the pockets of his dark brown canvas pants. They were work pants, Will noted, as were the olive drab shirt and the boots the other man wore. Work clothing that looked clean and pressed but well-worn, a habitual outfit rather than one worn for show.

His fingers were long and knotted, nicked with a few paler scars. A plain gold band on the fourth finger of his left hand peeked above the edge of the pants pocket. The backs of his hands and the top of his head were spotted with darker patches from hours, over many years, spent outdoors. A working man's clothes, Will thought, and a working man's body.

"So, you never answered my question," he said, letting an edge of insolence creep into his voice. "What are you a coordinator _of_? What's the whole objective here that you need to coordinate?"

If the other man had noticed Will's scrutiny and cataloging of details, he didn't seem bothered; nor did he object to Will's tone. He stood easily, shoulders slightly stooped, face blank of any expression, and spoke in a measured voice. "I'll explain. No interruptions, you understand? I explain, you listen; you can ask questions at the end." Will didn't bother with a response, and the man continued, "It's simple, really. You are an asset in a service I offer. The main attraction, actually." The Coordinator paused, regarding Will with remorseless eyes. "You're a soldier, but an undercover one," he said softly. "A warrior in the trappings of a pencil-pusher. We- again, my assistant and I- have perfected the art of identifying, tracking, and procuring such warriors. Because they're the best kind. Ones who look ordinary on the outside but possess extraordinary skills within. Those who are unpredictable. Unexpected." He paused again. "_Entertaining_."

The menace in that one word startled Will into speech, despite the earlier warning. "Entertaining, how?" he asked. "Who are you planning to entertain?"

"My clients," the Coordinator replied. "Customers, really, but for what they pay, I flatter them with a classier name." He rocked a little on his heels. "You're familiar with the phrase 'The thrill of the hunt'? That's what we offer here at The Lodge- a challenging,_ private_ hunting experience."

Will jerked forward, just barely refraining from yanking his hands from behind his back. "Are you _nuts_? I'm a government agent- I don't contract out for private hunting duties, especially in this kind of scenario!"

The Coordinator's eyes glowed with real emotion for the first time since he'd walked through the door. "Oh, you misunderstand me, Mr. Brandt. You're not here to be the hunter." His lip curled in a faint sneer.

"No, you're the prey."

* * *

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

"Prey? What...?" Will's hands slid down from between his back and the wall, to fall, unheeded, on the pallet. "_Prey_? You're hunting _me_?"

"I talk, you listen," the Coordinator reminded him, and Blue Cap made a nudging motion- _up, up_- with the gun. Numbly, Will tucked his hands behind his back once more.

"I own this compound. Fifty square miles of pristine wilderness, surrounded by a buffer zone of federally- and state-protected designated wildlife preserve. The only people within screaming distance are the ones I've invited." He stared down his nose again at Will. "Point is, you're on your own here, son. And it's up to you if you make it out of the hunt or not."

"I'm _prey_ and you expect me to believe I can survive?"

"With your wits, your skill, your training, you have a fair chance. I want my clients to have to work for their trophy. It's no fun for any of them if they take you down before sunset on opening day. Each and every one of my prey is hand-picked to have a better-than-average chance of besting the hunters."

_Hunters, plural_, Will thought, and he opened his mouth to ask 'How many?'. He was still reeling with shock, but his analyst's mind was already trying to compile as much intel as possible.

The Coordinator held up a warning finger. "Three," he answered when Will snapped his mouth shut. "Three recreational hunters to one professionally trained target. Seems fair enough, doesn't it? They'll be armed, you'll be armed, they'll have supplies, you'll have supplies. You even get a four-hour head start before they can start tracking you." He offered a thin, humorless smile. "And here's the brass ring to motivate you- you don't have to kill all three to win. Somewhere on the compound is one other building. It's an old hunting cabin from before I purchased this property. You find it- you get yourself inside- and it's a safe zone. No one can touch you. Inside you'll find a walkie talkie; you radio in and the game is over. The hunt stops, the clients remaining stand down, and one of my guys comes out in an ATV and escorts you back. Alive." He spread his hands in a benevolent gesture as if to say 'See how magnanimous I am'.

"And then what?" Will asked, when it seemed like the other man had finished speaking. "I come out of the woods, after being kidnapped, after three people tried to kill me, not to mention I got good long looks at your face and Mr. Friendly's." Will tipped his head toward the stone-faced Blue Cap. "And... what? You just let me go? You drop me off at the nearest bus station and say 'Arrivederci, thanks for playing'? Yeah, I don't think so." He pulled his arms from behind his back and folded them over his bare chest. "I think I'm dead win _or_ lose."

Blue Cap made a menacing motion with the rifle, but the Coordinator held up a hand and he stilled. "What do you remember about being picked up?" The Coordinator cocked his head, looking disturbingly like a vulture with his beaky nose, scrawny neck, and naked scalp. Will pressed his lips together and averted his gaze. "Nothing, am I right? What about the rest of that day? Do you remember what you were doing before we acquired you? Where you went, who you talked to? You don't. Today is Friday. Yesterday..." He snapped his fingers, a sharp _crack_ in the close room. "...doesn't exist for you anymore. Maybe not Wednesday, either."

Will flashed back to his last clear memory, working in his home office, with the door open to the summer evening. That had been Wednesday, because the presentation he was finishing up was due the next day. He shook his head. "I remember Wednesday... mostly."

"Mostly, yes. That sounds about right. See, there are some really interesting neurotoxins coming out of South America these days. You had a minimum dose of one of them. And it took a good forty-hour chunk- give or take- out of your life." He cut the air sharply with one hand. "With a full dose, you won't remember this entire week. You'll wake up, your experiences here will be erased. Me, my people, The Lodge, the hunt- all of it, gone.

If you best my hunters, either by eluding them or killing them, you win. And your prize is your life. I won't need you any longer and I won't fear you can identify me- so I'll let you go."

Will swallowed. It sounded convincing... but then, it was scripted to. Earnest words to present the illusion of hope. A shiver chased down his back. "You're crazy, you know that? Bugfuck crazy. Deciding to stage your own version of the Hunger Games on your private estate? That's men-in-white-coats territory."

The Coordinator didn't react to the provoking tone. "I was running The Lodge before there was a Hunger Games," he informed Will.

"Battle Royale, then! Shit." Will looked the other man in the eye. "What if I don't believe you? What if I decide I'm dead no matter what and I just don't play? What then, Coordinator?"

"My clients paid a premium to participate, and I don't give refunds. You don't cooperate, I let them in here with you instead of out there, and they can take their sweet time expressing their disappointment." He shrugged. "Your choice. Give up and die like a rat in a cage of tigers. Or man up and fight." He turned, clearly finished with the conversation. "I don't acquire quitters for my program, Mr. Brandt. I know you'll make the right choice."

Blue Cap was backing toward the door in his employer's wake, rifle still leveled at Will to hold him at bay. The Coordinator paused with his hand on the door. "Wake-up call is at five a.m. Think it over until then." And then, in a parody of a gracious host, he inclined his head. "Good night, Mr. Brandt. Enjoy your stay with us."

* * *

It was anything but a good night. The overhead light clicked off again about an hour later; but even in the darkness, Will couldn't switch off his mind and rest.

The cold pouring through the window didn't help, either. After curling up didn't alleviate his shivering, Will got up and stripped the sheet from the mattress. It was inadequately small and thin, but he wrapped it around himself before huddling down again. He hoped the supplies mentioned by the Coordinator included clothing. He did _not_ want to be running through the woods naked. _Did that once in wilderness training,_ he thought. _Don't need to do it again._

Especially if it was going to get cold like this at night. Will drew his knees up and tucked his hands between them. The rapid drop in temperature, the crisp, clear air chilling the room, suggested The Lodge was located at a higher elevation than Langley and Maryland. If he was snagged Thursday, and it was now only Friday night, he might still be somewhat nearby, albeit in a mountainous region.

Unless they had access to a private plane or helicopter to move him further.

Did it matter? No one outside was going to track him down in time. At some point, IMF would miss him when he didn't report in; at some point Ethan would start to wonder when Will disregarded his phone pings about a mission, Benji and Jane if he ignored their texts. But that was unlikely to happen for days.

No, he couldn't count on the team swooping in to the rescue. He was, as the Coordinator had said, on his own.

Eventually he nodded off. And had fitful dreams of Mumbai, Pyongyang, Croatia... all places where things had been bleakest.

The birds and a full bladder woke him before sunrise. Will paced and swung his arms and jogged in place in the pitch dark to warm up and wake up.

Slowly the room brightened.

As dawn approached, a cold certainty settled heavily in his belly.

He was, most likely, going to die.

Maybe not immediately, today, but before the week was out.

Three against one? Three who were depraved enough to hunt other humans?

The Coordinator was lying. No way was he going to put himself at risk by letting Will go back into the world if he survived. Even with memory loss- he'd have the IMF investigating, for crying out loud!

There were probably a lot of unmarked graves out here in the woods.

Ethan would eventually track him down, of that Will had no doubt. He would be long dead, of course, a trophy to some "hunter's" success, or victim to the Coordinator's mop-up measures, but Ethan would pick away at Will's disappearance until he unraveled it. And when he did, he would expose The Lodge and every one ofl its dirty secrets...

And he'd learn Will had gone down fighting.

Will took some small, grim satisfaction in that.

* * *

The light flicked on when the outer door clanged. Footsteps came down the corridor, two pairs, one much lighter than the other. The peephole flap opened, closed.

The key rattled in the lock.

The door swung open.

A different guard entered first, dressed identically to Blue Cap; this one had a shorter, more wiry build, and the thickened ears and flattened nose of a not-too-successful boxer. He gestured at Will with the rifle cradled comfortably in his hands.

"Feet apart. Hands on your head."

Will complied without fuss. Flat Nose glared at him for several beats, standing just out of arm's reach should Will lunge for him. He spoke over his shoulder without taking his eyes off his prisoner. "Secure."

A woman stepped through the door. Tall, thin, a little younger than Will. Straight black hair framed a pale, narrow face. She bore enough of a resemblance to the Coordinator that there had to be a family connection- she had his nose.

Green eyes- true green, not hazel, Will noted- slid down his bare torso and legs and back up again.

"Good morning, Agent Brandt. Are you running to the hounds this morning or staying in the henhouse?"

Her eyes were amused as they settled on his face, as if she knew a secret he didn't. Will made a derisive sound.

"You're as batshit as your father, aren't you."

She lit up with genuine pleasure. "I love it when I pick a smart one! Makes the clients really work for their prize." She drew a thick bundle from beneath her arm and tossed it onto the bed. "Clothes. Sized to fit, so you won't have difficulty moving in the woods." From her shoulder she lifted a pair of sturdy boots, tied by their laces, and dropped them in front of Will. "Boots. Same."

"Yeah, and that's not creepy or anything," Will growled.

"Oh, relax. No one groped you while you were out. Although... " She ran her eyes down his body again. "Sometimes it's tempting. No, I got your sizes from the clothes we took from you." She winked. "Very suave, by the way. Excellent quality. If you come back alive, you can have them back."

"And how many have ever come back to get their clothes?"

Will expected her to ignore his gibe, but she answered readily enough. "Four. Not horrible odds when you consider we only do this once, maybe twice a year."

"Four. In... how many years you've been doing this?"

She unslung a compact pack from her back. "How 'bout we skip the history lesson since you won't remember it anyway." She opened the pack. "These are your supplies- you'll pick them up as you head out of the compound, because your weapon is in here and we want you behind the barricade before you get your hands on it." She slid a wicked-looking combat knife half out of the pack and then back in again, and moved to the next item. "Water filtration bottle. There are streams and springs all over the property. Fill it up when you cross one and it filters as you drink. Don't make yourself sick on unfiltered water, that's boring." She poked the bottle back in and pulled out a handful of wrapped packets "Enough power bars, jerky, and dried fruit for five days. Should be more than enough, but if you want to supplement, there's plenty to eat out there- rabbits and grouse, edible plants, fish in the streams." She smiled broadly. "You've done survival training, you know how that works."

"I know that survival training is usually against nature, not goons with knives."

"Guns- the hunters will have guns. But you can just think of them as slightly more dangerous bears."

"A knife, against bears with guns- yeah, that's an even match," Will snapped.

The good humor wiped off her face. Thin-lipped, she jammed everything back into the pack and zipped it closed with a yank. "It's not supposed to be an even match," she said shortly. "It's supposed to be entertaining for the clients." She pointed. "Get dressed. The gate opens at six a.m. and you go through it, ready or not."

She swung to the door and paused, the falsely bright smile back on her face. "Oh, there's a breakfast tray in the hall. I'll send it through to you. Most prey don't seem to want to eat before they start, but I always offer anyway."

"I'll give you five stars for hospitality on Trip Advisor," Will snarled, and her peal of laughter echoed with the slamming of the door.

* * *

He left the tray on the floor. Infuriatingly sunny as she was, the Coordinator's daughter was right- his stomach was too knotted for the breakfast sandwich the tray held.

Will sorted the clothes on the bed. Forest camo pants and jacket; a matching thermal pullover. A belt, presumably so he could clip the knife to it. An olive drab t-shirt. Two pairs of wool socks. And the boots.

He'd be glad of the layers come nightfall.

He got dressed. Everything fit, as the daughter had claimed. He tucked the spare socks into one pocket, and then the napkin-wrapped sandwich in another. _"Main thing I learned from field training?"_ Benji's voice echoed in Will's memory, from a late night spent around a wobbly table in a Frankfurt biergarten. _"Never pass up a chance to eat, sleep, or piss."_

Benji was going to take it hard. He liked the way their little team had gelled, the four of them now in tune enough to meet up when off-mission and anticipate each other's actions when on. They were good together.

Jane, too. Jane could have closed off to everyone after Hanaway, but she hadn't, at least not with the three of them. She was going to take another hit, losing another team member.

Ruthlessly, Will shoved the thoughts away. He should have left a contingency note, a 'If you're reading this, I'm dead' message. It had kind of crept up on him that he had people to leave it for, though.

_Shut up_, Will told himself. He bent and yanked the sheet from the pallet. Thin white cotton was too visible for the woods, but still had uses. Folded into a ground cover. Torn into strips to make a snare. A rope. A garrote.

Bandages.

He folded it flat and tucked it into the back of his waistband, under his shirt.

The minutes ticked down.

Will's watch had been confiscated along with everything else, so he could only assume that it was promptly six a.m. when the door was shoved open again. Flat Nose gestured with his gun. "Out. Move."

The corridor stretched left, where it ended at a windowed metal door like the one to his room, and right, to a solid one with a metal push-bar across it. Flat Nose stood, just out of reach, barring the corridor to the left.

"Through that door," Flat Nose said, nodding to the right. "Go."

Will put his hands on the bar and pressed it down. It opened to the outdoors- a concrete pad underfoot, heavy chainlink fencing on either side and overhead that made a sort of exit chute from the building. A gate stood open at the end; Blue Cap was behind it, ready to swing it shut once Will passed through. He looked bored.

Will started down the chute. The building towered above him to his left- a sprawling, stone and stucco monstrosity, some bizarre hybrid of Gilded Age hunting lodge and Italianate villa. _Just goes to prove money can't buy taste_, Will thought, his eyes roving across the façade. Wide columns and arches framed a porch stretching the length of the third story, capped by a dark tiled roof. The daughter was standing in one of the arches, a coffee mug cupped in her hands and held close to her face. The Coordinator stood beside her, hands tucked into his pockets. He dipped his head in a mockery of respect as Will moved out of the lee of the building.

Three others stood on the porch with his "hosts"; Will slowed his steps to take in what he could about them. Clothing similar to what he'd been given, but bulkier- _Body armor, dammit_, Will thought grimly. Two had rifle straps slung across their chests; the third had his weapon cradled in his hands and was swaying a little on his feet- impatient, eager. The other two were watchful and still, one male, lean, impassive, with a dark cap pulled down to his brow, the other female, tall, white-blonde hair in a tight ponytail, her lips slightly parted.

Salivating to get started.

A crawling feeling buzzed between Will's shoulder blades, to have to walk that gauntlet of murderous intention and firepower. He made himself keep moving down the chute, eyes flicking from the open gate to the line of observers. The height of the porch probably gave them a pretty good vantage point overlooking The Lodge's property. He cut his eyes to the right. An open grassy area sloped downward, to the edge of the forest. High, wooded hills rose on all sides. Will's guess had been right- he was in the mountains, the Appalachians by the look of them.

Fencing stretched out from each end of the building until it vanished behind trees- towering, heavy-duty chainlink, woven through with thick horizontal wires.

_Shit. An electrified perimeter._

Well, they had to keep him confined somehow. They wouldn't want him taking off into unbounded wilderness. A straight-line run and a four-hour head start could get him pretty far from his starting point without a fence to limit him.

The pack hung on a hook just outside the gate. Will took one last look around.

The underbrush in the treeline directly below the chute looked thinner than the growth off to the sides. Someone had been doing some selective trimming, to subtly funnel the prey into running straight down the middle of the hillside once they took off.

Okay, Will could play along. Or at least pretend to.

He drew in a long breath. Rolled his neck. Rose on his toes, then rocked back on his heels to give his legs one last stretch.

Touched that cold spot in his center- _Go down fighting._

He broke from his slow stride into a hard sprint for the last few feet of the chute. Caught Blue Cap's smirk in the corner of his eye as he passed.

Snagged the pack from its hook.

Ran.

* * *

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry for the delay; this chapter took longer to post, but it's a little longer in length in exchange. Thank you to everyone who is reading! Hope you enjoy.

* * *

Will flew across the open meadow, pack slapping at his side as he ran. The crawling sensation of being in the hunters' scopes persisted even after he reached the treeline and plunged into it. He resisted the urge to hunch low and scuttle through the brush, instead lengthening his stride. The ground angled down steeply, thick with years of leaf litter and debris. Rocks rolled beneath the soles of his pounding boots, and he reached back with one hand, steadying himself on the incline as he half-slid downwards.

He was leaving one hell of a trail.

He thudded to a halt against a large tree. Adrenaline was pumping through him, making his breath short and his heart race. He leaned his shoulder against the broad trunk and filled his lungs.

_Stop. Compose. Assess._

Will looked back up the hill. The trees were definitely thinner in a strip leading down from the middle of the meadow. Branches had been cut back above head-height and underbrush had been cleared so only widely-spaced mature trees remained. On either side of the corridor, the brush closed in again in a thick screen of saplings and mountain laurel.

He couldn't see The Lodge from where he stood, but if anyone up on the porch had binoculars, they might still be able to see him. He had to make this look good.

He rolled around the tree trunk and continued downhill, taking sharp, leaping steps that dug deeply into the ground. He hit a steeper section and let it avalanche him down in a noisy rush, sliding through leaves until the ground leveled out once more. There he stopped and looked back again. He was far down the ridge now, hidden by its steep angle and heavy tree cover. He dropped to sit on the ground.

The subtle pathway continued on ahead of him but was getting narrower, the underbrush encroaching to leave only a faint trail that wound down and around through the thicker forest.

Will unzipped the pack while he oriented himself. Everything he'd been shown was still inside- water bottle, trail food, knife- along with one additional item. A small waterproof case lay in the bottom of the pack. Will popped it open; it turned out to be a mini first-aid kit, holding a few packets each of painkillers, insect repellant and antiseptic wipes, gauze and moleskin blister patches, as well as a half-dozen safety pins and a single pack of matches.

Maybe useful if he was taking a leisurely weekend hike. Not so much for bullet holes in vital organs.

He snapped the case shut and stowed it back in the pack. _You never know_, Benji insisted at every mission prep, as he packed all sorts of odds and ends. Maybe some of it would come in handy. Will took the last item out of the pack- his one weapon, the knife.

It was a damn good one. Special Forces issue, multifunction with serrated and razor-sharp straight edges. He slid it from its sheath, his hand fitting sweetly around the grip. Solid but not too heavy, perfectly balanced. He hefted it, pushed up to one knee, and took a few vicious swipes with it.

Might actually be able to take down a bear with it.

He sheathed it again, twisting to clip it to his belt, right where his hand fell naturally. He reached back, under his jacket, and pulled the folded sheet from his waistband. Rolled tightly, it just fit inside the small pack. He rose, shrugged the pack on, and adjusted the straps over the jacket.

He'd look for water as he walked.

He took a dozen more lunging, downhill strides, scuffing up the leaf litter in an obvious way. Then he reversed direction and started to climb back up, overlapping the path he'd made on the way down. When he reached the top of the steepest section, he moved to the left, step by careful step, working his way into the woods.

Branches closed around him. Time was passing; it was brightening by the minute, even with the heavy tree canopy overhead. The rising sun was on his right, meaning the trail led had south and slightly east, possibly intending to steer him deep into the center of the property. So Will headed north-west, away from where the Coordinator seemed to want him, and also upward, opposite of the instinctual urge to run downhill.

Leaves crunched underfoot and rocks shifted, threatening sprained ankles as he climbed. Will did his best not to disturb the ground or break branches as he pushed deeper. He didn't know how good any of the hunters might be at tracking; if they were experts at reading signs, he was in trouble.

_Next time I do this, I'll be sure to get dossiers on their skills,_ Will thought sourly. He turned shoulder-first to push through a dense tangle of mountain laurel and the thick, waxy leaves slapped him in the face.

Jane was better at this shit than he was. Light on her feet and graceful, she was downright invisible in the woods when she wanted to be. Last spring in Venezuela... she was never going to get tired of imitating his and Ethan's comical looks of surprise when she'd popped up out of nowhere and knocked that sniper on his ass.

He had to keep moving and hope that if his passage could be read in a crushed leaf or scuffed rock, he was at least one step ahead of the hunters. Losing them so they spread out to search and only encountered him one at a time was his best chance.

* * *

"You can breathe easy, the Maestro has arrived!"

Ethan Hunt glanced up at Benji Dunn's dramatic entrance, a slight frown drawing his brows together. "Finally! We've got a _really_ small window of opportunity with this one."

"The George Washington Bridge was a parking lot." Benji unslung his laptop bag and plopped it on the nearest chair. He glanced around Ethan's hotel suite. "Brandt's stuck in it too?"

Ethan's frown deepened. "Isn't he with you?"

"Why would he be with me? I was coming from Boston." Benji reached for the tablet that was dangling, forgotten, from Ethan's hand. "I had _just_ got there, by the way," he added pointedly.

"I'll have a stern word with the Bridge Bomber about not working weekends," Ethan said absently as he pulled out his phone and scrolled through it with quick flicks. "Did he text you?"

"Who, Brandt?"

"Yes, Brandt!" Exasperated, Ethan looked up.

"Nnnnope. Why, was he supposed to?" Benji frowned at the screen before him. "If these timestamps are correct, we have less than 18 hours to get to Key West, get a plan of action, and get set up." He clicked through a few more screens. "Why is this background so sparse? There's nothing about the Crescent City Bridge bomb. Why isn't Brandt here yet to fill it in?"

Ethan looked like he was trying not to grind his teeth. "That's what I'm trying to find out!"

"I thought he was going to be in Maryland. When he sent his mission accept, did he say he was coming in from somewhere else?"

"I, um, didn't get an accept from him."

"No?" Benji's eyes widened with surprise and not a little hurt. "We've been after this guy for a long time. Did he say why the reject?"

"I didn't get a reject from him either. I got your accept, assumed he would too, and sent the rendezvous info to both of you. ATF was messaging me with everything they had on this guy, and I guess..." Ethan looked uncomfortable. "I missed that he never responded."

"Maybe he didn't want a mission involving a bridge where he might end up in the water again. He does get his knickers in a twist over dunkings." Benji set aside the tablet. "Still, that's not like Will." He pulled out his own phone. "He never answered me, ether," he said after a moment. "I was... rather effusive at him that we had a crack at the Bomber in spite of the disruption- again- of my weekend plans. But nothing back. In fact... " He scrolled backward. "...he never replied when I asked how the hearing went. I thought he was driving and couldn't answer and then, well... it slipped my mind."

Benji and Ethan stared at each other. "I'm sure there's an explanation," Benji said uneasily.

"He could have gone off the grid for a while and forgot to check back in," Ethan said but his tone suggested he didn't believe it. He pointed at Benji. "Call him. Call IMF and see when he last scanned in or out of the building." He paused. "Call Jane."

Benji already had his phone up to his ear. "Jane's at her cousin's wedding."

"I know that."

"She won't like it. She said don't call, not even if someone steals the moon."

"Just ask her if she's heard from Brandt." Ethan half-turned and punched a number into his own phone.

"Voice mail," Benji said. He spoke urgently into the phone. "Brandt. Call in. Text me. Call Ethan. _Something_. Where are you?" He disconnected and dialed again.

"Jane has me blocked on her end," he said when Ethan had finished his own call. "She probably did the same to you. She said she wasn't missing her only cousin's wedding."

"I just need to know if she knows anything about Brandt's whereabouts," Ethan said. "I spoke to Agent James; she was at the hearing with him. She said she invited Brandt to the beach after it was over, but he turned her down, said he was going home." He ran his hand through his hair. "I'll call his condo manager."

"If he's in there with a, er, guest, he won't be best pleased to have someone pounding on his door," Benji offered doubtfully.

"He can yell at me after I get done yelling at him," Ethan replied, already dialing. "She'll call me back," he said moments later.

"Agent William Brandt scanned out of door East-Three of IMF Headquarters at two-thirty-nine p.m. Thursday and has not scanned in since," Benji reported.

"Text Jane." Ethan's index finger was tapping rapidly on the back of the chair beside him.

"She has me _blocked_, did you miss that part?" Benji snapped.

"Try her mother."

"I don't know her mother's number."

"Well, get it from Jane's records!" Ethan snapped in turn. His phone chirped and he snatched at it. "Ethan Hunt here."

"Brandt's not answering his door," Ethan said once he'd disconnected. "No signs of a break-in. The neighbors don't think they've seen him but he's "quiet and keeps to himself" so they're not sure." He paused. "His car's not there," he finished reluctantly.

"There, see, he probably went away for the weekend," Benji said. "People do, you know. Have lives, take spontaneous holidays..." His voice trailed off under Ethan's gaze. "It's probably nothing," he finished lamely.

Ethan was running his hand through his hair again. "Probably," he said unconvincingly. "It just... doesn't feel right. Brandt is Mr. Protocol. He wouldn't just ignore a mission prospect without some kind of reply."

"Maybe he dropped his phone in the loo."

"He'd call in and put himself on reserve contact while he got a new one." Ethan's head jerked up at the same instant Benji yelped and scrambled for his laptop. "His phone! Get a GPS trace on his phone, stat!"

While the trace was processing, Ethan sent out an agency-wide text, asking for any IMF personnel who had had contact with William Brandt in the past twenty-four hours to notify him immediately. Benji glanced up from his own phone's screen. "Jane's mum has me blocked as well. Well, more likely, Jane has blocked her mum from me, but you get the picture. This wedding is rather a big deal."

"She didn't know Brandt would go missing."

"_Is_ he missing? Like... actually missing, not a cock-up?" Benji asked warily.

Ethan stared out the hotel window. "I don't know," he admitted finally. Benji's laptop chimed and they both lunged for it.

**Signal Not Acquired** said the pop-up.

"Does that mean..."

"...He just has it turned off? No," Benji replied, clicking keys rapidly. "IMF has... ah, here, see?... deep-level GPS encoding built in to the circuits on a micro-scale. It keeps transmitting even when switched off, broken, or if the battery's pulled. The sat nav will stay operational until..." He broke off, a look of dawning horror on his face.

"...Until the phone is destroyed by extreme heat, pressure, or corrosive agents," Ethan finished in a grim voice. He thumbed on his phone on again. "I'm transferring the Bridge Bomber mission to other agents. Brandt _is_ missing. Finding him takes priority."

* * *

William Brandt was at that moment still hiking, working his way through steep, wooded terrain. He'd been at it for a good while now; he had a decent internal clock and was keeping a mental countdown to when the hunters would start out after him.

He was going to need water soon, too.

A blue jay screamed raucously and swooped through the branches overhead. Will halted instantly and turned in a slow circle, listening.

Nothing else moved. The forest around him was quiet except for the bird hopping from branch to branch and squawking. Carefully, Will lowered himself to a crouch and after a minute or so the jay quieted and flew off.

He had been the one to set off its territorial instincts, then, not an approaching hunter.

He reached down and burrowed through the leaf layer at the base of an outcropping of rock. Decades of harsh weather had crumbled a spill of gravel from the larger rock; Will sifted through the pebbles, found a rounded one, and rubbed it clean on his pants. He slipped it into his mouth and pushed to his feet again.

Some time later he broke out of the trees onto a broad, open corridor cut straight through the forest. It had been cleared of vegetation in a strip the width of a two-lane road; down the center of it ran the perimeter fence.

He'd found the western boundary of The Lodge's property.

Will paused just inside the treeline. By his estimation it wasn't quite four hours since he'd been turned loose, but there was a damn good chance the Coordinator would have released the hunters early, just for the hell of it.

No sounds save for birdsong disturbed the quiet. He scanned the corridor. To the right- north- would lead back to The Lodge; left- south- down into the property. A dead brown strip along the foot of the fence showed where herbicide had been sprayed to keep the weeds and grass down. Faint tire marks in the grass indicated regular patrols circled the perimeter.

Nothing moved. Will closed his eyes, took a deep breath... and stepped out from the shelter of the trees into the open.

No shots rang out.

He opened his eyes and scanned the area. Took another step. Then another.

Still clear.

Cautiously, he approached the fence. Extra heavy-duty chainlink, a good fifteen feet high. The posts appeared to have been drilled into the bedrock. Coil after gleaming coil of razor wire crowned the top edge.

And then there was the high voltage line.

The thick wire ran down the center of the fence. It looked innocuous, a tether to keep the linked sections from bowing in the wind. But as Will got closer, he could hear a very faint buzzing hum, almost below the level of his hearing. Current like a perpetual lightning bolt streamed through the fence, lethal with the most glancing touch. When he stood directly beside it, his morning whiskers prickled in the static charge bleeding off the fence.

Will backed up. _I've seen prisons easier to break out of_, he thought.

Short of wings, there was no going over this fence. He looked down at the stony ground. No digging under it, for that matter.

He took another step back, studying the barricade as it stretched off into the distance. It looked meticulously maintained, but maybe somewhere along its length was some sort of weakness or breach. Some small flaw he could exploit to get across into open wilderness, where he'd have more space to hide while he worked his way back to civilization.

Will turned to the left, downhill and away from The Lodge. He had a lot of ground to cover.

* * *

"Agent James was the last to talk to him." Ethan was pacing, a look of intense concentration on his face. "What do we have on her?"

Benji clicked away from the progress screen of the GPS trace he was running. "She's clean. Former field agent. Served with distinction, Central America mostly. Two citations for bravery. Transferred to Research and Analysis fifteen months ago when her partner started trying for a baby. She and Brandt were trading notes on close calls in the field due to tech inadequacies, and put together a presentation for Oversight." He paged through screens. "Iron-clad alibi for the time Brandt vanished- she and her partner had friends in to paint the nursery. She was in her office all Friday morning and then left at noon for a beach house on the Eastern Shore. She's there now with a dozen IMF co-workers."

"Okay." Ethan was still wearing a path in the carpet from the window to the table the laptop rested on. "I've got someone from Forensics heading over to Brandt's townhouse to process it. They'll let me know what they find."

The computer pinged, and Ethan leaned over Benji's shoulder. "Where's his car?"

"Uhhh, no signal located."

"What does that mean? Destroyed, like the phone?"

"Cars don't get the same deep-level tagging as the phones do- too many large systems needing replacement over time. No, it means someone found and pulled the locator from his car; it's not that difficult with a good scanner. Which means it could still be out there somewhere, we just don't know where."

Ethan curled one hand into a fist and bounced it against his leg. "What about surveillance?"

"Not much." Benji shook his head. "Footage of the hearing..." Video played at high speed as he fast-forwarded through it. Brandt was at the table down front, growing visibly more annoyed as the hearing progressed, to go by the hunched set of his shoulders. "...and the corridor afterward." Benji slowed the speed for the few moments of Brandt and James talking, then separating. No one followed Brandt out the door. "And here's the parking lot." Static images, taken from a camera high atop a light pole, flicked past, showing Brandt coming down the walkway and getting in his car, then driving away.

"Play that again," Ethan demanded, and Benji complied, hitting a key so the parking lot sequence repeated. "Why did he turn left? The exit to the Beltway is right."

"He always takes a long way home via back roads on Thursdays," Benji answered. "Says it 'mellows him out'. Just on days we can leave early," he added hastily, as if Will's choice of homeward route was somehow improper.

"That's how they got him," Ethan muttered, watching Brandt's car pull out of its space, cross the nearly empty lot, and once again turn left and move out of range. "Someone knew his routine. You said back roads? Ten to one they ambushed him on a deserted stretch."

"We can have someone drive the route. Even with the GPS disabled, its previous activity should be stored in IMF servers..."

"Do that. See what turns up."

* * *

The short grass gave way to bare stony ground and Will was soon scrambling down rocky crags, catching hold of thin, twisted trees that grew out of crevices to keep his footing. The fence continued on, between now-sparsely wooded cliffs, with no sign of vulnerability. Will had moved away from it, closer to the treeline, so he didn't accidentally stumble into it on the rough ground. He'd seen a rabbit dead at the base of the fence where it must have come in contact with the mesh.

Further along, he passed beneath a stubborn oak tree clinging to the rocky incline; several large black crows were perched in the branches, and they launched into the air with irritated croaks as he approached. They were still circling and cawing overhead as Will went past the withered carcass of another crow at the bottom of the fence; it too must have touched it and been instantly killed.

The enclosure had to be pulling a monumental amount of power to keep the entire surface electrified like that.

A memory teased at the back of Will's mind. He rolled the pebble in his mouth, thinking. Something about the length of the fence versus the strength of the charge, and the single wire that carried it...

His boot suddenly shot from under him. Will flailed, barely catching himself before he crashed down hard.

_Idiot. Don't lose your situational awareness._

A skin of moss had grown over that section of rock. Ahead, ferns were sprouting out of the spaces between the tumbled rocks and the sparse tufts of grass were a longer, more lush green.

Water. Finally.

He scrambled down the slope, past rocks that gleamed with moisture; lower, it had collected into small rivulets. At the base of a protruding bulge of moss-covered boulder, he found a pool of seepage, half-filled with rotting leaves.

Will dropped to his knees and shrugged off the pack. The water bottle had a filter built into the cap; he unscrewed it and raked aside the wet leaves. Once the bottle was filled, he replaced the cap, flicked open the nozzle, and drank.

He emptied the bottle completely; the water was cold, and tasted, not unpleasantly, of moss and leaves.

It was getting warm now that the sun was climbing the sky. Will tipped over to sit on a dry patch and loosened his jacket. He dug the sandwich out of his pocket- it was squashed and grease had turned the paper napkin translucent, but he finished it off in four bites.

The hunters were in the woods by now whether they'd been held to the appointed time or not. Will balled up the napkin and jammed it deep in his pocket.

He could abandon the fenceline and head back into the deeper woods, where he could play cat-and-mouse with all three hunters while trying to set up some sort of ambush.

He could look for the so-called safe-zone cabin, not that he believed the Coordinator would actually honor his claim that Will was off-limits if he made it there.

Or he could continue to follow the perimeter, watching the fence for a weak spot. As long as he kept to the edge of the treeline, he'd be less visible than marching down the center of the cleared strip and he could still move quickly.

Eventually the fence would loop back to The Lodge. There were armed guards there, but also ingress points, and once inside, potential cell phones, weapons he could liberate. A hostage in the Coordinator's daughter.

He remembered the sound of the car the previous night. Potential escape vehicles as well; Will might have been a self-imposed desk jockey after Croatia, but he could still hotwire a car in under sixty seconds flat.

He bent over and refilled the bottle, then scooped water into his hands and poured it over his head and down his collar. He pushed to his feet.

He could only spend so long playing hide-and-seek with the hunters, but for now, staying ahead of them was his best bet. Will hitched the pack into place and kept walking.

* * *

"I think I've got something!"

Benji tilted back the laptop screen as Ethan bent over his shoulder. A long list of dates and times filled the left column, followed by a column of alpha-numeric designations. One line of data was highlighted.

"What is it?"

"Brandt's license plate." Benji looked pleased for the first time since he'd breezed through the hotel door. "I took a chance on running it through every database accessible to IMF. Got a hit on it here- " He tapped the line of text and it expanded to fullscreen. "Philadelphia International Airport long term Economy lot. Entered at 6:19 p.m. Thursday. Has not exited."

Ethan snapped upright. "Pack up."

"We're going?"

"We're going. Have Forensics tow it to a local field office impound and start processing, and we'll ultimately meet them there to see what they pulled on it and on Brandt's townhouse. Get the security feed from the Parking Authority, too; we'll see who dropped the car off while we pick up Jane."

Benji was already shoving things into his laptop bag. "Jane's at her cousin's wedding."

"Yes, I _know_- and in New Hope, Pennsylvania. It's on our way."

"She said..."

"I know what she said. I also know what she _will_ say if we don't tell her the situation. She can decide what to do after we debrief her."

* * *

The fence made a right angle turn to the left, heading back into the heart of The Lodge property. There wasn't much else to see- the terrain had leveled off again and there was a wider triangle of mowed grass, and a thicker, taller post at the fence corner with a box covering the charged wire as it made the turn. The trickle of water Will had been following had increased to a narrow stream that ran off into the woods.

He paused there long enough to swap out clothes- jacket and thermal off, shirt stowed in the pack, and then camo jacket back on over the t-shirt- and to swallow one of the power bars and a gulp of water and to refill the bottle. He turned and started down the bottom edge of the perimeter.

He'd gotten a good way along when he heard it- the distant screech of an agitated bluejay. It kept screaming, sharp cries that pierced the still summer air.

_Move_, Will told himself once it finally quieted.

He kept up a strong, steady pace, alert for further disturbances, until he saw something different about the fence ahead. Just a minor difference- a flat box fastened to the mesh at about shoulder height. Like the box at the corner post, the wire that carried the electric current led to it, but otherwise it was completely featureless- no handy 'Power Off' switches or buttons or levers.

And the memory he'd been trying to recall earlier suddenly shook loose.

_Mexico, outside a prison where an asset IMF wanted back was being held. A fence ringed the perimeter- tall dense chainlink, heavily electrified. Too deadly to cut while live and not enough time to find the shut-off in the security bunker. Benji had surveyed the system, said he knew a hack, and proceeded to pop open a square, flat box attached to the fence._

_"Relay boxes are spaced periodically around the perimeter," he'd explained rapidly as he worked. "There's so much juice running through this thing, it would burn out the contacts trying to make an uninterrupted circuit of this length. The relays shuttle the power between them, kind of bounce it back and forth in sections." He'd cut a piece of wire from his kit and coiled it into a twisted loop. He'd held the loop up to Will. "When I drop this over these two leads, it'll trigger a closed feedback loop that'll short out the section of fence between this box and the next one."_

_He'd shaken out his wrists and poised over the relay's innards. "It's only temporary, so get ready with the cutters. You have sixteen seconds from the time I drop the short until the fail-safe kicks in and re-powers this section."_

Same kind of fence. Same overly-powerful current and extended length.

Same relay box.

Benji had had conductive wire and snips and a monitor to verify the current was off, and he'd had an extra pair of hands in Will. They'd gotten the section of fence neutralized, cut, folded back, and the team through it, all before the deadly voltage had surged through again.

Will had a knife, a few safety pins, and his bootlaces.

He looked up at the fence rising above him. He also had razor wire to deal with. But if he could get past the fence, it'd be worth it.

He started to shrug out of the pack.

In the distance behind him, a crow croaked out a loud warning call. It was followed by a cacophony of squawking as other crows took up the agitated chorus. Something- or someone- had disturbed the small flock Will had passed earlier.

He'd picked up someone on his trail.

Will gave one last conflicted look at the relay box. He didn't have enough time to gimmick the thing- from the sound of it, the hunter wasn't all that far behind him.

There would be other relays along the fence, and- possibly- other chances to disable one.

He abandoned the open corridor and plunged back into the brush. The ground was wetter there; springs and runoff from higher elevations had formed small streams and marshy patches. Will found a rocky creek bed and stepped into it so he didn't leave footprints in the soft mud.

A low ridge of drier ground cut through the trees. He left the creek bed to climb along it, heading up into the forested hills once more. The sun moved higher in the sky and he paused long enough to mop his face and swig from the bottle. The blackflies were getting bad, too; he started to slide the pack from his shoulders so he could fish out the bug wipes, but below and to the right he heard a bird break from cover and take flight, ripping through the underbrush with a drumming beat of wings.

A grouse, flushed from a roost by something nearby.

Will shrugged the pack back on and kept going.

He kept at it through early afternoon, climbing hills, zigzagging off through the trees for a time, then climbing more. Every time he thought he may have given his tracker the slip, some small sign indicated he or she was still behind him- the alarmed screech of a squirrel, a sudden silence falling, birds abruptly taking wing in a startled flurry.

Near the top of the long hill he'd been climbing, he came to another barren stone stretch. For a moment he paused, heart thudding with exertion; he could skirt the open area, staying under heavier cover, or he could risk the exposure, making a run straight up the clear slope and over the top to put a little distance between himself and his pursuer.

If he was going to set up some kind of ambush, he needed the time and distance to do so.

Will stepped out from behind a tree and started up.

_One-two-three-four-five_ quick paces and he'd gotten his stride, a bent-forward straining run up the stone face of the hill. Sparse, twisted pines offered scattered shelter, but Will didn't bother with their scant protection- he just barreled on in a straight line to the top of the ridge.

He nearly made it unseen.

Mere steps from the top, a rifle _cracked_ behind him, the report rolling across the hills. The shot barely missed him; if Will hadn't planted his foot just at that second in a twisting step to gain traction, it would have drilled squarely into the back of his skull. As it was, he felt the bullet sear past his cheek and spatter into the boulder in front of him.

Stinging chips of rock sprayed his face. Will flung himself aside, adrenaline flooding in and propelling him toward his only cover- a single, bent evergreen. Vaguely, over the roar in his ears, he heard another shot _crack_- this one ripped into the tree, shredding a rain of needles into his eyes.

Will flattened to the ground, scrambling on his belly to the top of the ridge. Boots digging in frantically against the rough ground, he threw himself over the crest and rolled down the far side. Still in motion, he pushed up, sharp stones cutting at his hands and knees, and took off in a bent-over sprint for the trees. He hit cover at a dead run and plunged deeper, abandoning stealth for speed.

He had minutes at the most before the hunter gained the top of the ridge and could fire down at him.

He ran, branches whipping as he tore by. Some part of his mind recognized he was making a hell of a racket, leaving a trail even a Cub Scout could follow. He dodged into the shadow of a large tree trunk and crouched, heaving for breath.

Silence. The woods closed in around him, heavy and dense. His heart was nearly choking him, and Will swallowed, pulled in a strained breath and held it to keep from gasping aloud.

Still quiet. His neck tingled with the sense the hunter was behind him and gaining, but he forced himself to remain motionless, to listen and to analyze.

Up. He should go back up, now, before the hunter overtook him. He/she would be expecting him to continue down the mountainside in a blind panic.

Will rose and lunged downward for another few dozen paces. He broke off the brittle branch of a witch hazel tree and then kicked at a fallen log half-buried in debris, spilling its rotting innards onto the forest floor.

And then he cut left, stepping with care and working his way horizontally, beginning to move in a broad arc back up toward the ridge crest.

A narrow gap opened in the trees as he climbed, sunlight slanting down in bright slices. Another small creek, formed by winter runoff from the summit. Will eased forward, ducking, practically crawling, until he reached the creek bed. It was nearly dry, a rocky strip winding through the trees and larger boulders. If he could navigate it without clattering the rocks out of place, he wouldn't leave prints.

Up or down? Up would take him away from the tracking hunter, at least for a short time, but might also bring him near the other two hunters, who had to have been drawn by the gunfire. Down would send him the original direction of his furious flight. The tracker might be waiting for him.

Or Will might be able to follow _him_.

He couldn't keep dodging and hiding forever- he'd be on the defensive non-stop and they'd eventually wear him down.

Going on the offensive, on the other hand, would be going down fighting.

The pulse pounding in his ears was starting to subside. Will took a deep breath and released it and headed down, again.

The adrenaline rush had left him shaky, and even in the heat of the day he felt cold. He moved carefully while his nerves settled, stopping often to sweep his gaze across the surroundings and strain his ears for any sign of other humans. The forest was eerily quiet- the gunshots had startled the wildlife into silence.

He flexed his hand until the tingling in his fingertips had faded and then quietly drew the knife. It would do absolutely nothing against the range of a rifle, but he felt better with it in his hand.

The creek bed deepened where water had poured over a shelf of rock and carved out the softer earth below; Will climbed down into the resulting gully. The depth of it had allowed water to remain puddled while the rest of the creek dried up, so he crouched to cup water in his hand and splash his sweating face and neck.

It was only because he was huddled below ground level that he saw it- a flicker of movement through the trees, low, between the slender bare trunks of a spicebush. He crouched lower. Another flicker, not of a leaf waving in the breeze nor a shifting of sunlight and shadow. No, it was a camouflaged pant leg, belonging to someone stepping slowly and deliberately through the trees below. Will reached down and scooped up a handful of mud, smearing it down his face while hunching lower so his own motion wasn't visible. He inched his arm up so his sleeve shielded his hair, and then risked a peek over the gully's rim.

It was the impatient hunter. Young- younger than he had appeared from the porch- and broadshouldered, he didn't look impatient any longer, only deeply focused. Will stayed frozen; he breathed shallowly and only his eyes moved, shifting to keep the tracking hunter in view. Step by careful step, the tracker eased up the hillside, scanning the ground. His rifle was cradled easily in the crook of his elbow, ready to snap up in the space between heartbeats.

Will watched him go by, only a stone's throw away. Still too far to rush him or throw the knife and expect to land a lethal hit in the neck or eye. In miniscule increments, he shifted to keep the hunter in sight as he passed. There was no chance he could creep up behind him silently enough to attack; Will let him go.

The tracking hunter moved on until he was swallowed by the trees.

Will waited for a full five minutes, counting them out in his head. Moving with exquisite care, he unlocked his knees and rose, retreating down the creek bed.

The terrain dropped steeply again and he slid down what must have been a small waterfall in wetter weather. In the shadow of the falls, he stopped, dug the camouflage thermal shirt out of the pack, and tied it around his head to hide his hair. There was another small pool at the foot of the falls; he added to the layer of mud on his face and hands.

The sun was brighter ahead. The forest opened out onto a pocket meadow, a small glade tucked between the gorge Will was following and a rise of rocky cliffs on the far side. Long grass swayed in the breeze. The lower edge of the meadow ended abruptly at a steep drop-off, where the soft soil of the field had been eroded by the rushing water of the creek below it. Flat slabs of shale were sliding down the face of the drop-off, one resting crosswise over the creek bed like a stone bridge. Will cautiously put a foot on it, but it wobbled, so he pulled back to climb around the heavy stone.

He inadvertently brushed the dirt wall below the meadow as he climbed down past it, and winced when it crumbled a bit and sent a small patter of dirt to the rocks below. He froze and looked up, straining to hear if the tiny avalanche had attracted attention...

And noticed that the whole underside of the meadow was beginning to collapse.

The creek was eating away at the base of the bank, eroding it until the dirt above slid down in unstable slabs. The rushing creek would carry away the fallen dirt, leaving the rocks behind in a tumbled pile and forcing the water current ever closer to the bank, where it repeated the process. At the moment, with the creek dry from a long summer, the process was stalled.

Leaving a shelf of thick, matted grass overhanging the front edge of the embankment with no dirt supporting it, the roots dangling a good ten to twelve feet above Will's head.

And in a sudden flash, he had an idea.

It wouldn't take much to destabilize that dirt bank. Some digging, pulling aside rocks buried for millennia in the dirt, finishing the work started by the creek before it dried up for the season.

And if someone were to walk out across the meadow, right to the edge to climb down where Will had passed, their weight would collapse the overhang and send them landsliding to the rocks below.

Where Will would be waiting for them.

Theoretically.

Will craned his head back. He'd need a track leading across the meadow, right up to a rock that was just poking out of the bank, making a convenient-looking jump down from the top. A couple of deep boot prints in the soil below _that_, making it look like he'd leapt down from point to point, and he'd have an enticing trail.

He yanked the pack from his back. There was no time- if he was doing this, he was doing it _now_, immediately, before the tracking hunter looped back once more in search of him.

Will trotted back up the creek bed until he was in the trees above the meadow, then cut to the edge of the forest. He snapped a few branches as he went, kicked over a mossy stone to expose its clean underside. Now was the riskiest part- he had to run across the open field, in clear view of anyone watching.

He didn't give himself time to think; he took off with long strides, tearing his boots through the tall grasses. At the drop-off he glanced back; a thin but clear path showed where he'd crossed. He jumped over the bank, landing first on the rock- it tilted, tipping forward under his weight- and then at the bottom, leaving deep prints right at the edge of the creek.

And then he moved into the shadow of the bank and got to work. At about waist-height on the bank, he carved at the dirt with the knife, slicing deep and then scooping the loosened dirt aside and behind him, where it would be out of sight at first glance. He worked backward across the wall, stabbing and scooping, gouging at the ground and then rolling the clods and rocks aside.

The sun was lowering toward the horizon when he paused; he had a trench carved into the bank, elbow-deep and about two feet high. A few places were deeper, where he'd dug great slabs of shale out of the dirt and tipped them to the bottom of the creek bed to lie in a jagged tumble. He stood up to stretch- his back was starting to ache with a hot twisting- and a small clod of dirt broke free about a foot above his head, gathering more dirt as it tumbled down the embankment.

The overhang was destabilizing.

Any more digging and the whole thing might collapse before anyone set foot on it above. Will wiped the knife blade on his pants and bent, stiffly, to retrieve the pack. He retreated down the creek bed a few paces, to a large boulder jutting out above the forest floor. He wiped his streaming face, treated himself to a deep drink of water, and rubbed his filthy hands over his face, grinding dirt into his skin. Re-tying the shirt over his hair, he settled into the lee of the boulder to wait.

He didn't hear the hunter coming. The birds did, though, and the forest, which moments before had been alive with chatter, fell silent around him. Will leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, fingertips of his left hand resting on the ground, the knife balanced in his right. If this didn't work, he was going for the hunter anyway. He had the element of surprise and he had desperation in his favor.

He still didn't hear the hunter approach, didn't hear him move across the meadow to the edge of the drop-off. The first hint Will had of him was when the tracker looked over the embankment and saw Will's boot prints at the bottom. He stood for a few seconds, a dark silhouette against the blue sky above the meadow, gazing out across the forest below him. Will didn't move, even to duck lower; any movement, however slight, would be a deadly giveaway.

The tracker stepped forward, boot landing on the grassy overhang.

And with no dirt beneath its matted grass cap, it collapsed.

The hunter grunted out a startled exclamation, instantly stifled. His left leg shot downward as the whole rim of grass fell away beneath him and he lurched sideways, trying to counterbalance. The front of the bank quivered; the hunter dragged his left leg up and released the rifle cradled across his chest to hang by its strap while he windmilled his arms, seeking purchase.

The collapsing sheaf of grass rolled down the bank, dragging dirt with it. The hunter jumped as it fell, aiming for the only stable-looking thing before him- the half-buried rock a few feet down. He landed square, lurching backward and grabbing at the bank behind him to keep his balance as the rock, already loosened from Will's weight earlier, teetered dangerously. He straightened with effort, his face dark with anger...

And the dirt beneath the rock gave way, tipping it forward completely and spilling the hunter head-first down the incline. He somersaulted in a deluge of dirt as the entire face of the embankment split off and caved in over him.

Will was already moving. The cascade hadn't even abated before he was leaping across the tumble of dirt and rock and grass, knife clenched in a death grip. The hunter was belly-down at the foot of the embankment, twisted among the rocks of the creek bed. The big boulder- the one he'd jumped on- had fallen across his lower back.

Despite being pinned, he was pushing up on his elbows, raising his head and shoulders and trying to heave the rock from his back. He caught sight of Will in his peripheral vision and snapped his head around, right hand straining down his side, fingers searching...

Will recognized someone going for a gun when he saw it. He threw himself across the remaining distance, landing astride the tracking hunter's back, grabbed a fistful of the man's hair in one hand, and wrenched his head back.

He sliced his throat before the hunter could so much as wheeze out a warning call.

* * *

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

It's my birthday, so I'm posting a chapter! Thank you for reading.

* * *

The rifle was useless.

Will glowered at its bent barrel and dropped it beside the body. It had been crushed against the rocky creek bed by the weight of the falling boulder when the tracking hunter fell. The scope was shattered, the trigger housing cracked, and, most damaging of all, the barrel was dented out of true.

There was nothing to be done for it; he went back to searching the body. There was an ammo pouch for the rifle- now equally useless- under the left flap of the jacket, and a shoulder holster beneath the right arm. Will heaved the hunter's body up on its side so he could slide the handgun free. A Glock, the holdout the hunter had been going for when Will finished him. It held a full clip; Will couldn't find any spares stashed on the body, but he tucked the gun into his own pocket with a deep sense of relief that he was now armed.

The man carried no ID and only the most basic rations- water, power bars, dried jerky. There was a hunting knife strapped to his boot, a Swiss Army knife in the breast pocket of his jacket, and, velcroed inside one sleeve, an emergency flare, presumably so he could signal for help if he got in serious trouble.

A shame he never got a chance to fire it off.

He wasn't carrying a cell phone or a radio. Will started working the camo jacket off the limp right arm. There _was_ the body armor, though, and he intended to get at it. He rolled the body, dragging at the jacket to get it under the back and off the other arm, and finally tore it free. Then he worked the vest's straps loose, heaving the dead-weight body yet again to extract the back of the vest from under it.

The dead hunter was a little taller than Will, broader in the shoulders and waist. Will adjusted the straps and tightened the buckles, sizing it down as best he could. As long as the padded plates didn't ride up under his chin and armpits, it should be functional. He pulled his jacket back on over the whole thing, patting the pocket with the Glock in it.

He felt like he had half a chance now.

Long shadows were beginning to stretch out in the spaces between trees and somewhere a cricket chirped tentatively. Night came quickly in the mountains. Will tossed the hunter's jacket over his bloodstained body and straightened on legs that were starting to ache. Shouldering his pack once more, he moved off into the forest.

* * *

The joyous music of the recessional swelled across the garden. With a great rustle and murmur, the assembled guests rose to their feet as a petite, dark-haired girl started down the grassy aisle, her new husband clinging a little shakily to her arm.

Behind the very last row of folding chairs, Ethan and Benji stood to one side, their hands clasped respectfully at their waists. The newlyweds passed in a swish of silk, headed for a classically-styled gazebo at the back of the garden. The attendants filed behind, men in crisp summer suits and the women resplendent in flowing gowns of cornflower blue and enormous white picture hats perched on their heads like platters.

"Do. Not. Laugh," Ethan growled out of the corner of his mouth as Benji made a smothered snorting sound, and Benji hastily rearranged his face into a grave expression.

The daggers Jane threw with her eyes would have killed any hilarity anyway. She glided serenely along at the head of the line of bridesmaids before she caught sight of her teammates behind the last row. Her eyes turned glacial. Then she looked front again and her face smoothed back into a radiant smile and she and the best man proceeded to the gazebo.

"She will kill us, you know," Benji muttered.

Ethan _hmm'ed_ noncommittally and stepped back as the guests began filing out of their seats to mill around the foot of the gazebo, offering congratulations and snapping pictures. Someone threw a handful of flower petals high into the air, and amid a shower of fluttering white, Jane broke away from the crowd and bore down on Ethan and Benji.

"What. Are you. Doing here?" she ground out.

Benji took a nervous step halfway behind Ethan. "It's... ah... we..." He looked helplessly at the other man.

Ethan cut right to the chase. "Brandt's gone missing."

The annoyance slid from Jane's face. "When?"

"Best guess, Thursday afternoon. He never made it home after the hearing."

"He's been gone almost forty-eight hours? Has there been a ransom demand?"

"No."

"Retaliation against IMF? Revenge?"

"That's unknown."

"What _do_ you..." Jane broke off as someone hailed her. She lifted one hand in a 'just a minute' gesture. "...do you know?" she finished.

"Jane! Photos!" The bride was on the steps of the gazebo, smiling and waving over the guests' heads. Jane's expansive hat swiveled like a satellite dish as she glanced, conflicted, between her two duties.

"Go." Ethan took her shoulders and turned her gently toward the bride. "We'll handle it and we'll keep you in the loop. We just wanted you to know."

"No," Jane said firmly. "The bridal party is staying at the guest house, the stone building you passed on the way in the lane? Mom and I are in Suite Five. Wait for me there, I'll be there as soon as everyone heads over to the reception in the main restaurant."

"You can't miss this wedding..."

"I didn't- the ceremony's over. We'll take some photos and my part will be done and I can slip away." She raised her voice in response to another summons. "Coming!"

Ethan and Benji were huddled over the coffee table in the small seating area when Jane rushed into the room, her hat clamped under her elbow. She tossed it at one of the pair of antique wingback chairs flanking a loveseat and strode over to join them. "Tell me what you have," she demanded, kicking off her heels.

It was more a list of what they _didn't_ have- no trace evidence from Brandt's house or car, no GPS signals, no witnesses, no ransom demands or even gloating messages from shadow organizations.

"No body parts, at least," Benji mumbled, busily tapping keys. Ethan and Jane froze, then turned to glare at him. "What?" he said defensively. "I'm just saying- some of those groups will chop off bits and pieces first thing to get your attention."

"So what now?" Jane asked. She leaned over the back of the loveseat where Benji sat, pinching sapphire studs out of her earlobes.

"Well..." Benji sat back against the cushions. "We have no clues really; not who took Will, or why, or where. No leads- so I have to spitball it. Now, it's possible someone wanted him for what he's got stored in that noggin of his- all that intel would be very valuable to some very bad people. But I'm not getting even a whisper on the channels, and usually a grab of this magnitude would set off a bidding war to make those stock market films look like tea parties." He rubbed his eyes.

"So. That doesn't tell us anything except what it's _not_. But I thought, what if it's not Will's IMF affiliation, but Will himself they wanted? So I did a search while we came down from New York." He glanced at the screen. "Still running, but it's given me a couple of hits already."

"On what?." Ethan leaned in from the other side.

"Missing persons between the ages of twenty-five to forty-five with a military-style background." Benji hit a key and another screen expanded. "Ian Weston. Retired Army Ranger. Ran a company out of Linwood, New Jersey that provided private security to Atlantic City high rollers. Disappeared thirteen months ago while on his regular Friday evening trip to a local sub shop for takeaway. No trace of him ever found- no cell phone records, no credit card trail, no unaccounted withdrawals from any of his accounts. Except..." He paused. "Weston's car was found six weeks later in a long-term parking lot at Liberty International Airport."

Ethan sucked in a breath. "Like Brandt's."

"Like Brandt's. State police decided he hopped a plane to the Middle East to hire out as a merc, but there's no evidence he ever flew out of anywhere. His wife's still looking for him." Benji expanded a second screen. "Kelton Tainow. Two tours in Iraq with an engineer's unit that cleared IEDs off bridges and roadways. He was working with NYPD S.W.A.T. when he didn't show up for work one September morning two years ago."

Jane slid around the arm of the loveseat to perch beside Benji. "And his car?"

"La Guardia Airport. There was speculation PTSD caused him to jump into the East River, but his body never turned up."

"Three makes a pattern," Ethan said. "Keep running the search, cross-referenced with mass-transit parking lots. If we can find a common thread between the missing people, it may lead us to Brandt."

* * *

It had grown dim beneath the tree canopy. A chorus of crickets sang from the deep shadows around the roots and a few birds chirped sleepily overhead. Will moved with deliberate slowness to keep from tripping in the fading light. He had been aiming for the lower edge of the fence, but by the time he got there, it would be too dark to work on the relay box. The casing was plastic and would be safe to handle, but inside would be wires and contact leads and plating that would fry him with one careless touch if he couldn't see where to put his fingers. Risking the noise of a bullet into it wouldn't help either; destroying one box only earned him seconds before the fail-safe built into the system kicked the current back through the neutralized section.

Quiet and fast was the way to go, and he couldn't do either in the dark. He needed to hole up for the night and make his attempt with first light.

He became aware that tree branches no longer dragged at him as he walked. He stopped and turned; behind him, just barely visible in the dusk, was a faint gap through the underbrush. He had managed to wander back onto the trail.

_Might as well see where it goes._ There might be a hunter waiting for him at the end, but they didn't know yet that he now had a gun.

He stopped often to listen for sounds beneath the evening singing of insects and birds. It was possible the two remaining hunters would settle in somewhere for the night; the risk of shooting each other while blundering around in the dark had to be on their minds.

It was also possible they were crazy enough not to care.

Will's eyes had adjusted to the murk, so when the trees opened up ahead, he noticed the faint shift in light immediately.

And it was the perfect spot for an ambush- a little open clearing at the foot of an easier-to-navigate trail. Just screaming "set-up".

He drew the Glock and sank to his knees, then his belly. Slowly, cautiously, he elbow-crawled forward, wincing at the rustle of leaves beneath him.

A rocky cliff rose at the far edge of the glade, a wall of solid blackness beneath the darkening sky. Will could smell dampness- one of the small run-off-fed creeks was nearby. He edged forward until only one large old maple tree stood between him and the clearing, its thickly-leafed branches casting a deep pool of shadow at the edge of the clearing.

It was another scooped-out pocket tucked between the hills. This one wasn't as open as the meadow- saplings sprouted across it, as if the forest was beginning to reclaim the glade. A huge, towering pine rose in it; the evening breeze sighed through its branches. In its shadow was a large blocky shape.

He'd found the cabin.

For a long moment Will lay on his belly, listening to the shushing of wind through needles, breathing the scent of damp stone and moss. He could see how it would be tempting. Tired, afraid, on-edge from relentless pursuit, someone might decide the cabin was a risk worth taking. There was water, cover, a defensive position. A place someone could duck into and make a stand against the hunters.

That someone wasn't going to be Will.

Just as cautiously as he'd approached, he began edging backwards. He'd backtrack up the trail, and then cut across the woods, picking up his original destination of the south boundary. Find some dark crevice and catnap until...

His left knee landed on a fallen twig. Before he could jerk it up again, the dry wood snapped beneath his weight.

The crack of a whip couldn't have been louder in the hushed evening. Will froze.

For an instant he thought it had gone unheard. And then, over the thundering in his ears, he heard a very faint sound, a scuff or a scrape.

The rifle blast that followed shattered the quiet, rebounding off the cliff wall. Will rolled, landing in a patch of bracken, and flattened himself to the ground. Somewhere just over his shoulder came the biting crunch of a bullet burying itself in fresh wood. He whipped his head around; the largest object in his immediate vicinity was the maple tree. Behind him, his avenue of escape was the terminus of the trail, with its widely-spaced trees and lack of cover. Will dove forward, shoulder smacking the broad trunk. Another shot ripped the air, kicking up leaves and dirt as it skimmed past.

The shooter was up in the tall pine tree beside the cabin.

And from the accuracy of his shots, he or she could see Will clearly.

_Night vision. He's got damned night vision goggles_, Will cursed. He rested his forehead on the tree trunk and breathed, forcing his heartrate down. He'd have one chance at this, one, and if he screwed it up, at best he'd be back on the run with this guy right on his tail. The dark wouldn't hide him.

He lay prone and strained his eyes into the shadows; let the hunter think he was pinned down while he adjusted to the failing light as best he could. He started inching his right arm forward through the weeds, lining up his shot. With the body armor, it was going to have to be a headshot, in the dark, through screening branches.

_Piece of cake,_ Will told himself. _And when I make it, I'm going to get Ethan to buy me a drink. Hell, a whole bottle. Of Jane's favorite Eagle Rare bourbon._ He breathed, willing his pulse even slower, steadier. He couldn't take all night- there was a third hunter still out there, probably at this moment being lured in by the gunshots. He drew one knee up carefully and heard a faint creak from the tree in response to his movement- yep, the sniping hunter could see him.

He was going to get picked off as soon as he poked his head out from behind the maple, but dammit, he was giving this his best shot anyway.

Will pushed up onto his knee and left hand, rocking slightly in place. Through the garish, indistinct view of night vision, it might look enough like he was preparing to bolt to distract the sniper for one vital second.

He bobbed his head up along the edge of the tree trunk and the rifle cracked a third time. Splinters of bark sprayed his head as he shoved fully onto one knee, snapped his left hand up to brace the Glock in his right, and fired.

There was a darker patch between the pine branches, about fifteen feet up and back by the trunk. Will caught his target in a split-second glimpse and squeezed off the shot in another fraction of a second. And then he was falling behind the tree again, scraping down its rough bark with adrenaline pounding through his veins. Dimly he heard a choked sound, almost a cough.

And then silence.

The echoes of gunfire died, rolling away through the hills like fading thunder. The crickets and birds had gone as quiet as if a switch had been flipped. Will swallowed, shoulders and back tense against the tree, gun held at chest level. There was no sound from the clearing.

He closed his eyes for a second, fixing the brief glimpse he'd gotten into his mind. Then he rolled around the trunk to the right, letting his side dip into view as if he was about to fire around that side of the tree. Immediately he rolled back and popped out the other side, snapping off two shots at the spot where he'd seen the dark patch. No return fire greeted him.

Will held his crouched stance for several long heartbeats. The darker patch among the branches was still there, but lower, and a little more forward of its original position. It was motionless except for a slight back and forth sway. He pushed upright, stepped forward.

Still nothing. No movement, no sound... the entire forest had gone still, waiting for the next explosion of violence.

And then off in the distance came a rattle of brush- some small animal flushed from cover and sent bolting through the leaves. Someone was on the move.

Will strode to the foot of the tree and looked up.

About fifteen feet up, two thick branches grew out of the trunk in a broad V-shape, forming a small but workable natural tree stand. The sniping hunter slumped there, arms dangling, rifle hanging by its strap from his neck. He'd tethered himself to the trunk with a hunting harness and now hung limply from it, suspended high in the tree until someone cut him down.

Something _plinked_ wetly into the dry needles at Will's feet. He stepped aside to avoid the drip of blood from overhead, still gazing into the tree. The sniper was merely a darker shape amid the dark shadows and the night vision gear obscured any glimpse of his face, but judging by his bulk, he was the second male hunter. At least one of Will's near-blind shots had found its way past the body armor.

_I am so getting Ethan to treat me with that drink when I get out of this bullshit._

Another drop of blood fell, reminding Will that time was passing. There was some good gear up in that tree- night vision, a working rifle, ammo. For a second he wavered; equipped and with the vantage point of that sniper's nest, he could wait for the third hunter, the woman, to come investigating and take her out as soon as her signature appeared in the goggles.

There was movement out in the dark forest, quiet but distinct.

He wasn't going to have the time to get up there, get the gear off a heavy, dead-weight body and assembled for his own use, before she was in range to start shooting at _him_.

Another rustling of vegetation, closer now. Will threw one last agonized look at the sniper's bulk.

And then he turned and slipped off into the dark.

* * *

"Twelve," Benji said.

Ethan and Jane both looked up from the computers and printouts spread across the coffee table and floor. "You sure?" Ethan asked.

"Sure as I can be. Fallyn Sanders, twenty-eight. Active duty DEA when she dropped off the map eight years ago. There was some confusion as to whether she was in-country at the time or out, so her absence wasn't reported for three weeks. Her car turned up at Dulles when someone bothered to look."

"Add her to the list," Ethan said wearily. He clicked over from the police report he was studying to the map Benji had sent to each of their laptops, and watched while it updated with new location dots- blue for Sanders' home, green for workplace, purple for car. "There's no real pattern, is there?" he muttered. "They're scattered down the eastern metropolitan corridor, but in no particular cluster."

"No handy bull's-eye, no," Benji agreed. He wiped his hand down his face, knuckling his eyes, and rolled his neck. "C'mon, c'mon, give me something here, something I can work with..."

"Three weeks," Jane said. She stared moodily at the photo of Sanders included with her missing persons report. It looked like a scan from her government-issued ID, and showed a serious young woman with pale skin and long dark hair. "I hope someone would notice sooner than that if **I** disappeared."

The door to the suite flew open and all three occupants swung sharply around, hands flying to hips or waists. "Jane!" A tall woman in a darker-blue version of Jane's dress stood in the doorway. "Good lord, where have you been? Dinner's over, you missed Grand-dad's speech _and_ the bouquet toss. Jessamyn wants to cut the cake!"

"I guess that answers my question," Jane said, and Benji snorted lightly. "Guys, this is my mother, Celeste. Mom, Ethan and Benji. We work together."

"Ma'am," Ethan said, and Benji lifted his seat off the loveseat in a hunched sort of half-rise. "How d'ya do, Ms. Carter."

Celeste was staring around what had been a charming colonial-style guest room when she'd last seen it. "What's going on?"

"Mom..." Jane looked helplessly at her mother and then back at Ethan and Benji, unsure how much to tell her.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Carter, this is my fault," Ethan said with grave sincerity. "I commandeered Jane away from her family when she should be celebrating with you. We had a work crisis and I took advantage of her willingness to lend a hand."

"We can handle it," Benji offered. He waved vaguely at the mess. "We're just, er, crunching numbers at the moment anyway."

"You should go back to the reception, Jane," Ethan told her.

Jane pushed her laptop off her knees and stood. "Someone's missing, Mom."

Celeste looked between the three of them, her gaze lingering longest on Ethan, as if she saw the authority simmering beneath his earnest demeanor. "This is important." She made it a statement rather than a question.

"It is, yes."

She nodded. "I'll pull Jess aside and tell her you were called away. You're going to have to explain it to her later, though."

Jane winced, just the slightest tightening of her facial muscles. She looked stoic, but it was clear she cared deeply about her cousin, and hated to disappoint her, maybe yet again.

Ethan put aside his own laptop. "Jane, go ahead. There's not much you can do here until something shakes loose."

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "We need eyes on the data. Any little scrap one of us notices could be the piece that breaks this thing open."

"So go and be with your family for a while and come back later with fresh eyes."

Benji arched his back, stretching. "You might as well." He tapped at the map on his screen with its scatter of multicolored dots. "I've had an idea- to try tracking by date rather than location." He glanced sideways at Celeste. "I, er... thought I would do some digging in, ah, _dark places_. So to speak." He raised his eyebrows at Jane. "I might use your computer linked to mine to hack my way in."

Jane looked uncertain. Ethan made a shooing motion toward the door. "If Benji's running code on your computer, you'll just be sitting around anyway."

"Just for a while, Jane," Celeste urged.

"You're not trying to get rid of me, are you?" Jane received two emphatic shakes of their heads. "All right. But you will call me if you find anything."

"Take the blocks off your phone and I promise."

Jane bent and scooped up her shoes. "Just for a little while," she told Ethan.

"You got it."

"If, er..." Benji rubbed the back of his neck. "If you'll be cutting the cake anyway..."

"Fine, yes, I'll bring you a piece!"

"And maybe some of those little wienies in pastry?" he called hopefully after her. "If you have 'em. Or the tiny meatballs on toothpicks! Those are lovely, too."

Jane shut the door firmly behind her. Benji sighed and swung to sit facing front again. He caught Ethan's baleful look. "What? I'm hungry. I work better when I've been fed."

"Just concentrate, Benji. You said you had an idea."

"Yeah." He stretched out his arms, linking his hands and twisting them to crack his joints. "I'm thinking of seeing what turns up in the murder-for-hire postings on the Darknet."

* * *

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

I just wanted to thank everyone again who is reading. Here is some Will!whump for a spring Sunday morning. Enjoy!

* * *

The birds started up again before dawn.

Not that he was sleeping anyway; it was too cold for that. But the pre-dawn chorus was the final straw, and Will pushed aside the leaves he'd buried himself in and rolled out from under the toppled tree that sheltered him. He could probably see his breath- if, y'know, he could _actually see_. He swung his arms hard and stomped his feet to get his blood flowing and then bent and fished the sheet out of his bolt-hole and rolled it back up.

He might as well get on the move. The blonde ponytail woman seemed to have given up trailing him past the cabin clearing- if she'd found the sniping hunter, tangled in the tree and shot dead, she had to know Will had acquired a gun now. But she'd be coming after him as soon as there was enough light to shoot at him.

He dug a strip of jerky out of the pack to chew on while he walked. First thing he needed was to find a relay box. Next was to actually short the thing out, and then get over the fence in one piece, and then hike out to find help. But he'd start with finding a box.

He stumbled along in the dark until he'd sorted himself out, found the downhill slope by gravity and let it carry him along. Downhill was roughly southward and south was where the bottom edge of the fence had been, so that was where he headed. An hour's walking under a slowly lightening sky got him to the treeline and the cleared strip with the fence. A small stream ran through the woods parallel to the fence, and Will crouched down, listening carefully to the surrounding forest while he refilled the water bottle.

All quiet.

Blonde Ponytail could be still resting somewhere, but he really doubted it. Like him, she'd probably risen in the dark. He tucked the water bottle into his pack and pushed through the brush to the cleared strip.

Still quiet. He broke into a steady jog along the fenceline.

He was sure he'd gone more than far enough to find a relay box, but the fence remained stubbornly blank. Will slowed at a slight rise and peered ahead in the grey morning. If he didn't find one soon, he'd have to decide if he wanted to keep going or turn around and work his way back to the one he'd found yesterday.

_A little farther._ He breathed deeply. _At least I'm warm now._

There. Finally. The fenceline ahead climbed a long, gentle incline, and near the top Will saw the protrusion of a relay box interrupting the smooth wire mesh. He picked up speed and finally reached the box, peeling off his pack as he trotted up to it.

The ground was rocky, with only a thin covering of grass. Pine trees grew on either side, stretching up the hillside behind Will and down into a steep valley on the far side of the fence. He looked around nervously. There was a lot of dense cover on that hill; anyone coming down it wouldn't be easy to spot while he was working.

_Need to do this fast, then._

He went up to the box and looked it over. One screw, on the underside. He took out the Swiss Army knife he'd taken off the tracking hunter and pried open a screwdriver attachment.

He could feel the current sizzling through the fence, inches from his face. He could hear the hum of it and see where the deadly wire entered the box he was about to start poking at with a piece of metal.

_Deep breath. And then do this, Brandt._

He made himself reach out and tap the grey plastic casing with the stubby screwdriver. A huge shiver of relief shook him when all it did was _'click'_ dully, no teeth-rattling jolt of electricity. He eased down onto his knees so he could get up underneath the box, and, dry-mouthed, put the tip of the screwdriver to the metal screw holding it shut.

No jolt there, either. Will blew out his breath and went to work on the screw. It was rusted over, and the short length of the tool and the awkward angle he had to work in made it slow going. He shifted closer, trying to gain a little leverage without brushing the fence surface, and forced the screw another half-turn. Then another. The damn thing was nearly fused to the plastic case, furred over with years of corrosion. Another half-turn, and the screw was starting to strip. Will stopped, pulled open the corkscrew attachment on the knife, and used the point to dig and chip away at the rust coating.

Another half-turn. Another, and it seemed a little looser...

The screw wobbled and fell out of its slot and Will cursed silently in relief. One tiny damned screw, holding up his entire escape. He sat back on his heels and took a moment to look around and listen. The pine trees behind him were still making him nervous. Even though they were probably shielding him somewhat, they were also shielding anyone who approached. He reached in his pocket and took out the Glock and laid in on the ground beside him, in easy reach.

The top half of the casing pulled straight off, leaving the bottom half attached to the fence. Inside was packed with the circuit relay, tight twists of wires and bars and metal plates, tiny screws holding some bits in place, plastic clips clamping down others. Will stared at the mess, trying to picture Benji's single hurried tutorial nearly a year previously on how to short out an electrical relay.

There should be two leads, sticking up near the main live wire. Carefully, he used the handle of the knife to ease one insulated wire up and out of the way. There, beneath it, were the leads- dull silver, about the thickness of birthday candles, rising from black plastic insulating rings on a metal base plate, with the live wire clamped to either side of the plate.

_Peachy._ He had to get those two leads to touch, which would short out the system for a few brief seconds, allowing him climb the fence and throw himself over the razor-wire at the top.

Benji had had nice bendy wire, which he fashioned into a perfectly-sized twist and dropped over the leads.

Will had... He searched his pockets, and the pack.

He had safety pins. The metal snaps on his jacket. Three knives. And the bullets in his gun.

He'd shoot the damn thing if he had to, but with Blonde Ponytail on his trail, every bullet counted. Plus, fast and quiet was still the way to go.

Safety pins, then. He fished one out of the first aid kit and held it to the relay. Too short- he could drop the pin between the two leads, but it wouldn't close the gap. All right, he'd have to unbend the pin into a straight metal piece and then curve it into a loop.

He gathered everything up and moved back into the trees, settling cross-legged beneath one large enough to cover his back. The tracking hunter's boot knife had the thinnest point; Will inserted it into the head of one safety pin and jimmied it back and forth until the rounded top popped off, leaving him with a V-shaped wire with one sharp point. Several poked fingers and inventive curses later and the pin was straightened out. Its wire was stiff; Will had to use the handle of his knife to force it to bend into a loose circle.

Now to size it so it fit over the leads. He rose and went back to the box, slipping the Glock into his pocket to leave his hands free.

Too big. He eyeballed the pin, and the distance between the two leads, and then stepped back to work the wire into a tighter loop. It didn't need to be elegant, it just needed to link the two together...

Something slammed into his lower back with the force of a battering ram. He heard the crack of a rifle at the same instant as the impact and only long-ingrained instinct made him dive to the side rather than pitch head-first into the fence. Will hit the ground hard enough that he bounced a little, the air leaving his chest in a pained grunt. There was a spreading numbness in his lower body and a strange, pulsing deadness below his ribcage. His legs didn't want to work either, but somehow the Glock was in his hand. Will jammed his left elbow in the ground and flipped himself around so he was on his stomach, facing up the hill, his deadened legs trailing behind him.

From between the trees he saw a pair of legs moving, coming down from the rocky summit in short step-jumps. Another second and her upper body would be below the screening branches and she could take another shot at him. He stretched his arms ahead of him and lined up a shot just as the numbness rolled over into pain.

"_shit-oh-shit-oh-shit!_" Will's eyes blurred with the force of the agony. White-hot, raw-edged, it screamed out from the point of impact, up his spine and down his legs. He slammed one fist into the ground, raked it across rocks. Another cramping wave sent a molten fire up his back and he had to bite down on a real, throat-scouring scream until it eased.

Somehow he got his head up, blinked streaming tears from his eyes. Blonde Ponytail was still coming, zigzagging between the pines in a nonchalant, almost jaunty manner.

She didn't know he was wearing the vest he'd gotten off the tracking hunter. She'd taken a disabling shot- not a kill shot- into his lower back, thinking she was severing his spinal cord, and now she was cheerfully bouncing over to finish him off at close range.

Another pulse of pain shot along his nerves and Will ground his teeth against it, swallowing a moan. _Shit-shit-shit. _He brought his hands back together, cradling the Glock with his arms outstretched. Blonde Ponytail was more than halfway down the hill now, bobbing out from behind a pine, ponytail swinging.

She was smiling.

He fired.

She went down with a small shriek, flung backwards into the dry needles. Will started to drag himself forward, seeking cover in the trees. He was getting feeling back in his legs now, but it was accompanied by erratic, needling pain and he was having trouble putting any force behind his movements. He crawled into the shelter of the tree where he'd left his pack and ducked his head around it, trying to get the woman in his sights again.

He'd been aiming for her throat, but his shot had gone wide, hitting just below her Kevlar'd collarbone instead.

He pushed up on one elbow, shoving himself until he was half-propped against the tree. Rapid rustling came from the hill above him- the woman was retreating in a fast scramble back up the hill, one arm cradled to her chest.

She'd be back.

Breathing hard, Will slung the pack onto his back. With a grunt of effort, he reached overhead, caught the lowest branch in one hand, and hauled himself to his feet.

The numbness was still fading, and so was the hot, cramping pain, leaving a throbbing ache where the bullet had struck the back of his vest. He swayed for a moment, checking his status. Sore, but no longer agonizing. He took a step, hand still braced on the tree, and had to use it to pull himself back upright when his knee crumpled.

_Move, dammit. She'll be back as soon as she shakes off the impact._

This time when he took a step, his knee stayed locked. Another step- it felt oddly like he was walking on stilts- and then he found his center of balance and could move, weaving a little but making progress.

Distance. He needed distance between himself and her. He couldn't afford to get into a gun battle with her- his ammo was running out and every shot needed to count. Slowly he increased his pace until he'd gotten to a shambling half-trot and he headed away from her last direction of travel.

* * *

A gentle tap on the door roused Ethan. His eyes blinked open and he rose from the armchair in one smooth motion, giving no indication he may have been dozing. He ran his hand through his hair and gave a sharp tug to straighten his shirt and by the time he opened the door, he looked as though he'd just stepped out of his office mid-morning instead of running code all night with Benji.

Celeste smiled sympathetically at him. "Brought you coffee," she mouthed, low-voiced, and indicated the linen-draped cart one of the guest house employees had wheeled up behind her. It held a large coffee urn and mugs and a caddy full of sugar and milk. "And breakfast." Celeste raised the large basket she carried.

"Thanks, I got this," Ethan told the employee, and she nodded and turned the cart over to him.

Celeste held the door while he brought it inside and plugged in the urn. She looked around for a clear space to set the basket and finally placed it on the seat of the chair Ethan had vacated. "Any leads on your friend?"

"We're getting there." Ethan glanced around the room. Jane was curled in the second armchair, a pillow from the bed tucked between her neck and the high padded arm of the chair; printouts had spilled off her lap and lay fanned across the carpet. Benji had his head tipped back over the back of the loveseat, legs outstretched before him and his chin tilted toward the ceiling. His mouth hung open. "Doesn't look like it at the moment, but we're making progress."

"That's good to hear. Now, we were due to check out at noon today, but I talked to the front desk and told them you boys and Jane might need to stay longer."

"Thank you. I'll go down and put the charges onto our employer's account. Sorry for putting you out of your room last night."

"Don't even think about it. I had relatives galore to bunk with." Jane was awake, unfolding her legs gingerly, and Celeste went over to drop a kiss on the top of her head, stepping over Benji's sprawled legs to reach her. "I'm going down to have breakfast with some of them. Call if there's anything I can help with."

"Okay, Mom, thanks." The coffee urn was starting to send out a rich aroma and Jane made a beeline to snag a cup. After the door closed behind her mother, she nodded over at the sleeping tech. "Should we wake him?"

"Wave a muffin under his nose, he'll surface." Benji's computer growled an alert- it sounded like a muted Wookiee roar- and Ethan spun the laptop to look at its screen. "Decrypted another one." He read over the short message as Benji stirred and raised his head with a groan. "Same as the others: 'Your application to attend a skills-based recreational event has been conditionally approved pending receipt of the non-refundable, non-negotiable payment in full listed on the application. Rendezvous location will be transmitted upon proof of fund transfer.' There's an offshore account number for the payment."

"It'll be a dead end like the others," Jane said, poking through the basket until she found a bagel. "The money's bouncing around a series of dummy accounts until it's untraceable without an International warrant." She held up a pastry to Benji in offering and when he nodded, lobbed it over to his lap.

Benji took a huge bite and pulled the computer back from Ethan. He scrolled the screen with quick flicks of his finger while he chewed. A frown gathered between his brows. "Vif wums diffwen," he informed the others.

Ethan shoved a cup of coffee at him. "_What?_"

The tech took a gulp. "This one's different," he repeated, sliding forward to the edge of the cushions and beginning to type rapidly. "Shit, shit, shit..."

"What? Shit, _what?_"

"Hang on, hang on, almost got it... SHIT." Benji leaned back and Ethan and Jane peered over his shoulders.

The screen filled with numbers, so tightly packed they ran off either side of the monitor and spilled downward, line after line after line racing by. Thousands- tens of thousands- of numbers separated in groups of three by periods scrolled in flickering rows.

"What is that?" Ethan demanded.

"Code. Some kind of encrypted file. Huge." Benji shook his head, eyes still fixed on the screen. "No, I've never seen it before. But it's attached to the money transfer, so I assume it's the rendezvous location mentioned in the email. For some reason, after this particular, I dunno, "buyer", released the money and got the location in exchange, he or she linked the file to the original email instead of just downloading it. It had a 'view and obliterate' order hard-coded into it, but linking it kept its footprint alive when I hacked into the ghost records and reconstructed the email trail." He shook his head at the others' frowns. "Somebody screwed up, and left a clue."

"Are _you_ downloading it? What if it erases after it finishes running here?"

Benji pointed to Jane's laptop, linked to his with a cable. "Everything I'm doing is backed up in the second drive as well as funneling into IMF's servers."

The rows of numbers ended, the screen continuing to scroll until they had disappeared off the top There was a pause and then the word 'Deleting...' appeared in the center of the screen. Benji tapped a couple of keys and nodded. "I've got the file."

"Give us a rundown- what do we have by now?" Ethan asked.

"Okay. We've got people- trained, skilled people- who have gone missing over the last twelve years. Usually one person per year in late summer/early autumn, but twice now I've found instances where a second one vanished in spring. And they're just the ones I've found- there could be more. Their cellphones or pagers vanish; their cars are left- wiped clean- in locations where they aren't noticed quickly. Their credit cards, bank accounts, and email are never touched again.

"In some of the cases I've found so far, within a day of the disappearances a heavily-encrypted message went out over the Darknet to a kind of dropbox, telling the recipent their application to some kind of activity has been approved, and when payment has been received, they'll be given a location. Apparently, this file will contain the location."

"So just what _is_ a 'skills-based recreational activity'?" Jane asked, reading over the latest decrypted text.

"Judging by the careful wording? Something highly illegal," Ethan replied. "Something involving a buyer and a missing person. He's buying... a person? An extreme fighting match with them? Or some kind of death race?"

"Survival," Jane said softly, answering her own question. She shoved her coffee mug onto the end table and bent, shuffling through the printouts scattered at the foot of her chair. "Look- look here." She brushed at the mess on the coffee table, found a pen and began hurriedly marking pages. "It's right here in their common backgrounds. Weston- Ranger school. Tainow- basic training plus combat. Phelan- basic plus combat medical duty. Sanders- survival training plus marksmanship. Jennings- police academy, search and rescue, urban assault training." She paused and then threw a final paper onto the pile. "Brandt- infiltration and intel, advanced self-defense and weapons... survival training."

Ethan had gone pale under the morning shadow on his jaw. "It's a hunt."

Jane nodded, tight-lipped. "I think so, yes."

He stabbed his finger at the computer. "We need this thing decrypted, STAT. Whatever it takes, we need that location. Until we have it, we can't pull Brandt out."

"You got it." Benji rolled his wrists and dropped his hands to the keyboard.

* * *

He had to start over from scratch.

Will's fingers were busy, slowly straightening the bends in another safety pin, one shoulder propped on the trunk of the tree he perched in, his hip braced on a branch. Climbing up had been fairly hellish- the bottom edge of the vest had ridden up and dug into the still-painful damage to his back each time he'd raised a knee or an arm to reach a branch. He'd ended up peeling open a packet of painkillers from the first aid kit and dry-swallowing them once he reached a sturdy lookout. It had been worth the discomfort, though; he had a pretty decent vantage point both up and down the fenceline and back into the nearby forest.

And so far, he hadn't spotted Blonde Ponytail.

He shifted position, wincing at the fresh twinge as his back brushed the rough bark. He couldn't see over his own shoulder to the point of impact, but Will had taken shots while Kevlar'd before and was familiar with the bruising that resulted- black and blue didn't begin to cover it.

_Suck it up_, he told himself. _Shouldn't have turned your back to the trees._

On that thought, he shifted again, easing around the thick tree trunk to look up the wooded crevasse behind him that cut between two bare, rocky cliffs. The breeze had died as the day progressed and the leaves hung motionless in the building heat. The blackflies had returned as well, and Will had been forced to open one of the bug wipes to keep them from swarming him as he worked. If Blonde Ponytail followed the small creek down through the crevasse, she would set the still foliage into motion, enough to be noticeable.

It just might take her a while to find him again. After he'd abandoned the first box he'd gotten open, he'd bypassed the second one he came to and kept going at a pained jog until he'd reached the next one. If Blonde Ponytail investigated what he'd been doing when she'd shot at him, she might count on him heading to the closest relay box to continue, and she might lurk there for a while, waiting for him to show up. And that might give him the time needed to get this more distant one cracked open.

A lot of "mights", but what other options did he have?

Will checked the pin-wire and took the knife from between his teeth to begin bending it around the handle. He'd lost the first loop in the grass when he went down; he couldn't afford to do that again, he didn't have many spares.

He tucked the rough circle into his pocket and sheathed the knife, lifting the pack from the branch he'd hung it on. Time to do this. He lowered himself to the next branch, trying to ignore the jolt of pain when the vest gouged him again.

The relay box he was overlooking was located on a slightly more sheltered stretch of fence than the others he'd passed. Rocky cliffs, bare except for patches of weeds and a scrubby bush or two, towered high overhead; they were split by a crevasse, a narrow gap formed by eons of runoff and snowmelt and grown over with trees, including the tall one he was clumsily working his way down. Blonde Ponytail could approach either along the open fenceline- where he'd see her coming from either direction- or down the wooded creekbed behind him- where he would hopefully see or hear her moving through the still brush. The cliffs would impede her access- she'd have to come up to the very edge of them before she'd have a shot, and he'd be screened from view until she peered down from the clifftop.

This spot was the best setup he could work in.

Opening the casing went more smoothly this time; Will knew to chip the rust off the screw first, then loosen it in careful increments. Case open, he located the leads and measured the pin-wire against them. It looked too small, so he retreated to the base of the cliff to adjust it a fraction larger.

Back to the box, and this time when he held the loop over the leads, it looked perfect. Will folded his fingers around it while he scanned the surroundings yet again.

When he did this, he was going to have to move _fast_.

He stepped back and tilted his head, measuring the fence with his eyes. He estimated where his first leap up it would take him, where his hands would land, how many climbing steps he'd need to reach the top.

The top that was piled with razor wire.

It would spring up around him as soon as he tried to roll across it, snagging his clothing and skin and then slicing deeper, shredding him as he struggled to free himself.

Will shrugged out of the camo jacket. It was tough canvas and had a padded lining; he hated to lose it, especially when night fell again, but it would cushion the wire enough to get him over the top. He patted down the jacket and moved the Glock to his pants pocket- there'd be no retrieving the jacket once he tossed it onto the wire.

Another check of the area- he went a few paces down the fence and back up again to find no sign of Blonde Ponytail. He couldn't get her confident little smile out of his mind; she'd been so damned _pleased_ with herself, thinking she'd paralyzed him and had him at her not-so-tender mercy, and she'd come down that hill toward him with a playful spring to her step.

The tracking hunter had been eager to start seeking him; the sniper, patient and intense. But the woman was taking a genuine glee in the game.

Will shivered despite the bright sunlight, and then winced as another jolt of pain accompanied even that slight motion. He need to stay ahead of her at all costs; next time, she'd aim for his legs to bring him down and then saunter up for the killing blow. His hand brushed the knife at his belt; she'd probably gut him with his own weapon... and smile while she was splitting him open.

_So get your ass in gear and get ahead of her so she can't._

Truth be told, he was stalling a little. Working on the boxes brought him close enough that he could feel the static spill-over prickling the hairs on his wrists where he'd shoved his sleeves up. He could just hear the low, deadly song in the wires, and it set off an answering thrum of dread in his belly. If he didn't do this exactly right, he'd be just as dead as from Blonde Ponytail's bullet. Death by electrocution, his body left hanging from the fence in the warm summer sunshine like discarded laundry, was a grisly thought.

At least that way, the woman's insufferable smirk wouldn't be the last thing he ever saw.

He turned and took a few fast, running steps toward the nearest tree, planting one booted foot at the base of the trunk and leaping to grab at a branch above his head. He caught it, hauled himself upward with his toes digging into the trunk, and snapped his hand out for the next branch. One more, and he was at about the height of the fence. He planted his hands on that branch, pushing up and rolling over it to hang suspended for a split second. If he were on the fence itself, he'd push free and drop. For this practice run, he hung from the branch for another few seconds before swinging back toward the trunk and sliding down, hands laddering past branches, boots scraping bark.

This was not working. Will tipped forward, resting his forehead on the tree, breath hissing between clenched teeth. The ill-fitting vest rode up every time he extended an arm or leg, its sharp rim digging deep into his back and making his breath catch and his muscles flinch. He had sixteen seconds- at the _most_- to get over the damned fence, and he wasn't going to make it with his range of motion limited.

He tightened the straps and moved the buckles to their tightest positions but a shrug and a twist of his waist showed him it was no use- too much give around his shoulders and under his arms, ridden too low across his back. The vest still pressed deep into the pounding bruise with the slightest motion, made his muscles jump and twitch with the sudden shocks of pain.

_Going to have to lose it._

Decision made, Will stripped open the fastenings and pulled the vest over his head. Air hit his sweat-soaked shirt and he took a deep breath, feeling disturbingly naked now without the armor.

He'd throw it. Toss it over the fence and pick it up on the other side. Will folded the vest into a tight bundle, clamped down the buckles, and without giving himself time to think twice, took two hard strides and heaved.

_Good arm, Brandt._ The vest soared up and over the fence in a sharp arc, dark against the bright sky, and then plummeted down. He watched it land with a muted '_thump_' in the shorn grass of the outer perimeter. Throat suddenly dry, he spun, snagged the backpack, and sent that sailing over as well. No more stalling. Now he _had_ to get over if he wanted to retrieve his gear.

He lay the jacket at the foot of the fence, took a deep breath, and rubbed sweaty hands on his pants. He touched the knife on his belt, the gun in his pocket, and scrubbed his arm over his face, rubbing off the last of the dry, flaking mud with the crook of his elbow.

_Ethan would do this without hesitating. Benji would be confident of his abilities. Jane would trust in her own meticulous planning._

And so Will pulled the wire loop out of his pocket, held it over the relay box, and lowered it until it hovered millimeters above the targeted leads. His fingers tingled, whether from the deadly current or just tension, he couldn't tell.

_Please work, please work, please work._

Will opened his fingers and let the wire circlet fall.

It dropped neatly onto the protruding leads, and the result was instantaneous. A blue-white spark, eye-hurtingly bright, _'cracked'_ from the center of the box; Will flinched involuntarily. The sharp odor of ozone and melting plastic exploded outward, and a shockwave rippled away down the wire mesh.

_Sixteen Mississippi._

Will twisted on the ball of one foot, treaded sole ripping at the grass. _Fifteen Mississippi._ He snatched up the jacket, raising it to his mouth and clamping the collar between his teeth. Took two huge steps back across the clear ground. _Fourteen Mississippi. Thirteen Mississippi._

He ran straight at the fence and jumped. _Twelve Mississippi._

His hands hit the mesh about two-thirds of the way up, and clung, and the fact that he was still conscious and aware sent a punch of relief through him that cost him another _Eleven Mississippi._ second. The weight of the jacket dragged on his jaw and he ground his teeth tighter and jammed his toes into the holes in the mesh. _Ten Mississippi._ He shoved upward, left hand up, catching just below the lowest curve of razor wire. _Nine Mississippi._

Twisted his fingers hard into the chainlink, snatched the jacket from his mouth with his right hand, reared back and whipped his right arm around in a flourish. _Eight Mississippi. Seven Mississippi._ The jacket settled over the razor wire, mashing down the springy coils and rebounding with a slight bounce. _Six Mississippi._ Will grabbed the top row of chainlink with his right hand, feet churning, and boosted himself upward, straightening both arms so he "stood" on the fence with his upper body pushed upright. _Five Mississippi._

He bent forward at the waist, stomach compressing the jacket-covered wire, and somersaulted head-first over the top. _Four Mississippi._ His stomach stung, but he ignored it, swam his hands forward, reaching down to grab the mesh below his now upside-down head. _Three Mississippi_. His lower body followed, flipping him heels-over-head over the top of the fence, twisting his arms backward and straining the tendons in his wrists and arms. _Two Mississippi._ His boot heels hit the fence and bounced, the momentum ripping his hands free of the chainlink and throwing him, shoulder first, to the ground.

The impact jarred his aching spine so hard his vision fuzzed out and he forgot to count. Will coughed, boots churning impotently, one arm trapped beneath his body, the other outstretched, cramped fingers digging at the ground. He couldn't tell if he was clear of the fence or still touching it.

There was a weird buzzing noise coming from somewhere; he thought it was his head and thought he must have whacked it on the hard ground. He reached his arm out and pulled, scraping himself a scant inch forward, away from the fence. Reached, pulled, another scrape forward. Again, and surely he was clear now, and Will rolled, flopping over onto his back. He coughed again, muscles spasming, and opened his eyes.

Blue sky overhead, deep, late-summer blue. A few treetops, their dark green delineated by the bright sunlight and bracketed by bare cliff tops to either side. It was dead calm, not even a breeze stirring, and somewhere a cicada whirred out an undulating song. Will lowered his chin a notch and the fence loomed above him, defeated now because he had scaled it, had escaped its implacable dominion.

Will barked out a slightly hysterical laugh at his own absurdity and pushed up, wincing, to his elbows. He could forgive himself the overwrought reaction- he'd escaped with his life with barely a second to spare.

Atop the fence, the camo jacket hung askew, its snaps vibrating against the re-electrified wires, producing the low buzzing he'd heard, like thousands of enraged hornets.

The fabric was smoking.

Will allowed himself one final shudder of relief at his _insanely narrow_ escape and rolled to one hip, drawing his legs beneath him and pushing to his feet. He wobbled, found his balance, and straightened up, arching carefully backwards to ease his cramping back muscles. Satisfying as it would be to revel in his escape, he couldn't linger.

His shirt drew tight across his stomach with the motion and the cloth felt cold, and wet. Will dropped his hand, felt wetness, and when he looked, the entire front of his shirt was dark with blood, sliced by a dozen narrow slits where the razor wire had cut through the jacket, both the shirts he wore, and him. His elbow was bleeding too, and the heel of his right hand.

He pulled up the ruins of the thermal and t-shirt and ran his fingers through the pooling blood on his stomach. The cuts barely hurt, just stung a little, and while deep, didn't seem to be worryingly so. He shook blood off his fingers and turned, stiff-kneed, to pick up the pack. Looked like that sheet he'd been dragging around was going to be put to use.

He bent just as a rifle shot 'cracked' past, striking the ground to the front of him and spitting dirt onto his bloodied hand. He wrenched sideways, snatching up one pack strap as he turned.

She was on the right-hand cliff-top, rifle raised and aimed down at him. The barrel shifted minutely, bringing him back into her sights. Will rolled aside, coming up with the Glock as he righted himself with one knee bent. He snapped off a shot and she dropped, but not hit- he hadn't aimed precisely enough. Before she could get her gun up for another shot, Will was moving, spinning and making for the trees beyond the mowed corridor. The ground dropped off just beyond the cleared strip, falling away in a steep, brush-covered slope. He pounded across the ground, pack banging his hip.

The treeline waited ahead, a dense, green sanctuary that would swallow and hide him. Will cut sharply to the left, aiming for a negligible gap between two mountain laurels and the deep shadows beneath their thick leaves. He planted his right foot, pushing off in a leap that would take him over the crest of the dropoff, and into safety.

The rifle 'cracked' again. Something snatched at Will's hip, but he was moving so fast he barely noted it. He crashed between the laurels and the heavy leaves closed behind him; he landed, left foot down, and pushed off again in another downward leap, leaves tearing past his face and shoulders as he dove into the thicket. Right foot landed, knee bent to push off into his next step...

And his leg collapsed beneath him. He pitched forward in a crash of branches and leaves and hit the ground with the full force of his momentum behind him. He half-rolled, half-skidded, in an avalanche of leaves and twigs and dirt.

He came to rest at the gnarled, mossy roots of a hemlock tree, right leg twisted beneath him. He shook his head dazedly, pulse pounding heavily. _What the hell? What- ?_

He must have snagged a vine, gotten tangled so it brought him down. He rolled, sorting out his limbs, and fire blazed along his right hip, above the top of his thigh. He arched up, bracing one hand on his leg and twisting to look down...

The right leg of his camo pants had a gash torn across it, a hands-breadth below his waist. The edges of the rip in the cloth were dark, and the darkness was spreading, flooding downward and glistening, sticky and wet. Will lifted his hand and turned his wrist.

His palm was a hot, wet red.

Will felt his body start to shake as the adrenaline-fueled numbness gave way and his delayed reaction caught up with him. "Oh, shit..."

* * *

tbc


	7. Chapter 7

Here's the next installment of William Brandt and his Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend. He's a bit of a mess, and I hope you enjoy!

* * *

With fingers gone ice-cold, Will delved into the hole torn through his pant leg. They slid in heavy wetness, and a shock of stunning pain exploded down his leg. Reeling, he yanked his hand back and slumped on the tree, breathing hard. "_Shit_."

His luck had officially run out. Yeah, he was past the fence, had two fewer hunters to worry about, but his hike out was now compromised by a damned _bullet through his leg_.

Darkness was creeping into the edges of his vision. Will lifted his bloodied hand, placed it on the tree, and squeezed. The mossy bark crunched and dug into his palm, giving him a focal point.

_Breathe, Brandt. In and hold. Out, slowly. Again._

He was this close to hyperventilating. Pain was raging through him and blood was welling in a steady flow down his leg, but he couldn't deal with either if he passed out.

_In, hold. Out, slowly._

This time when he moved, the darkness didn't narrow his vision. He took his hand off the tree, chips of bark glued to the blood, and felt down his side until he found the pack. His fingers felt thick and dulled, but he managed to get the zipper tab between them and to pull it back. Its rasp sounded harshly loud even over the pulse thudding in his ears and he wondered briefly where Blonde Ponytail was.

_On the far side of the fence. Focus, Brandt._

The sheet was flimsy enough for him to tear with his bare hands, without needing to nick the hem with his knife. He kept tearing until he'd removed a strip the length of the sheet; then he turned it and ripped another strip off the short end that he folded into a pad of cloth.

He was starting to pant shallowly again; he made himself hold his breath for a few beats- _Do. Not. Pass out.-_ until he'd slowed down his respirations again. Then he fumbled at his waist until he'd gotten his belt unbuckled and pants undone. The pants were dark to the knee now with blood, so soaked that droplets were seeping down onto the thick covering of fallen hemlock needles he sprawled on. Will shoved the pants down until they were below his hip and clapped the pad onto the bullet wound.

Starbursts exploded behind his eyelids. _Like being in a cartoon_, Will thought vaguely, pain rocketing up beneath the pressure of his hand. Elmer Fudd in full hunting regalia, gunning for Bugs Bunny. Or was it Daffy Duck? _Wabbit Season. Duck Season. Nope, it's Will Season, and I got bagged._

The pain finally ebbed a notch. He lifted his face off the tree trunk, gritted his teeth, and made himself lift the pad enough for a wary look.

Not quite as bad as he'd feared, but bad enough. The bullet had skimmed his hip, not a through-and-through but carving a deep welt through his skin from back to front. Maybe a bit of luck remained- a fraction to the left and it would have plowed into his hipbone, shattering it and leaving him crippled, bleeding out on the mountainside while Blonde Ponytail made her sprightly way to where he'd fallen.

_Which could still happen_, Will thought as blood welled up again while he examined the damage. He pressed the pad back down to stanch the flow. _Got to get the bleeding stopped. Can't do anything until I do._

His ears were buzzing a little. Will let his head droop and breathed, hand jammed hard to his hip. The cheap cotton was rough against his torn flesh, and that plus the pressure were firing off a few more of those cartoon starbursts on the back of his eyelids. Daffy Duck was the one who got popped and saw stars, Will remembered hazily. Bugs was the wascally one, who outsmarted Elmer Fudd without a scratch. Duck Season. Will Season.

_Do. Not. Pass out._

Will jerked his head up, fighting off the drifting feeling that was trying to drag him under. His fingers were wet again- the pad was soaked through with bright red. Clumsily he pushed up, managed to rip another piece off the sheet and wad it over the first. It was a really awkward place to take a bullet- to tie the bandaging in place, he'd have to wrap it all the way around both hips, not just his leg.

He'd deal with that in a bit. Right now, priority one was to just get the bleeding stopped.

Somewhere up the hill behind him came a sharp '_pop_'. Will startled, far too violently with his shocky nerves, and wrenched around, snatching up the Glock in a sticky hand while he scanned the crest of the hill. There was a rushing '_fwooosh_' and then another '_pop_', higher above him and fainter.

Between the soft branches of the hemlock, red smoke drifted across the blue sky.

Blonde Ponytail had sent up a flare.

She must have climbed down from the cliff and reached the fence, where she realized it was live again and was standing between her and her prey.

She was summoning assistance from the Coordinator and his guards.

They had ATVs, Will knew, remembering the tracks in the grass along the fenceline. They'd have radios and could use them to request the fence be shut off so they could reach him. Fear swept the haze from his mind. He knew with cold clarity what he needed to do- get moving, and fast. Carefully he placed the Glock on the needle-carpeted ground beside him. There was only a bit of sheet left; he folded it up into a thick pad and laid it along his hip. The long strip he wrapped tight around himself, as low on his hips as he could without impeding the movement of his legs. The last safety pins from the first aid kit held it in place; he peeled open another packet of painkillers while he was at it and tossed down both pills, tinted rust-colored by his fingertips.

Breathing hard, Will dragged his pants back up into place, easing them over the bulk of the bandaging and buttoning them. Part of the largest padding reached to his waist and he smoothed that flat and cinched his belt tightly to help hold it in place. He could feel the bullet wound pounding in time with his pulse and he wasn't even standing yet. He took a drink and then, wincing, shrugged the pack onto his back. It hung a little loosely now that he didn't have the bulk of the vest covering his upper body, and it was probably going to bounce unpleasantly against the bruise on his back, but fiddling with the straps to adjust it higher was beyond his capabilities right now.

He had to tuck the gun into his left pocket where it wouldn't bang his bad leg with every step. He hitched around until his back was flat against the hemlock, and once positioned, took a breath and blew it out, trying to steady himself. His heart was racing too fast and too shallowly. His hands and feet were cold and tingling.

Will was teetering right on the edge of full-blown shock and what he needed was to lie down with something warm covering him, or at least in a sunny spot with the sun baking into him.

What he was going to get was a hike through the backcountry in search of a town or a house or at least a road, with pain jarring every step of the way and vital fluids leaking away.

Will braced his shoulders on the tree and pushed back with his left leg, levering himself slowly upright against the trunk. A rush of dizziness made his head swim and cold sweat broke out along his hairline and down his back. He bent forward with his forearms braced on the trunk and waited for it to pass.

Falling down would be a bad thing- he'd rip open the bullet wound anew and jolt his pain level from Barely Tolerable to Off The Charts. So Will stood with his right knee flexed, his foot barely resting on the ground, waiting for the waves of pain to recede and the trees to stop swirling.

And then, long before he was ready, he put the sun and the fenceline and Blonde Ponytail to his left, clenched his jaw, and took the first halting step of many.

* * *

"Any progress?" Ethan asked in a clipped tone as he swung back into the sitting area from the bedroom where he'd been making phone calls.

"No," Benji answered, just as shortly. He pointed to the portable printer beneath the coffee table where it was periodically printing off an attempted and eliminated code. He had his cell clamped to his ear with his hunched shoulder and he said into it, "No, not you, Chloe, I mean, Yes, do that and get back to me." Jane took the phone from him, hung up, and laid it on the table with one hand while texting into her own phone with the other.

"Paris has a couple of unique Cold War-era encrypts on file. Told them to send them to your computer."

"'Kay." Benji caught sight of the blinking 'Incoming Message' icon at the bottom of his screen and tapped it active. He shook his head. "Looks like just variants on Corvus Three and I tried that an hour ago."

"Run them anyway," Ethan demanded.

"Yup," Benji bit out. He linked the coded file, started the decrypt, and minimized the window, going back to what he was doing.

Ethan leaned over his shoulder. "Are those musical notes?"

"Yup," Benji snapped again. The rapid clicking of his fingers paused, and he sat motionless, jaw clenched.

"Benji." Jane reached over and slid the keyboard out from under his fingers. "We're frustrated because we can't help, not because you're not doing your job." Her hand darted out and caught his when he reached to drag the laptop back and she squeezed his fingers. "Five minutes. Take five minutes. Please?"

"If I stop, I don't know if I can start again." He threw himself back against the loveseat cushions and dug his knuckles into his temples. "_I don't know what this thing is!_ I've run everything in IMF's database six ways to Sunday. I've got people at Headquarters running combos of ten different encrypts that there should be no way a layperson could construct without the kind of mainframe IMF has. I've run it forward, backward, sideways, and in every alphabet known to history. I've tried the Bad Translator, for fuck's sake!"

"Okay." Ethan dropped into one of the wingback chairs. "Then it's time to go at this from another angle. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's not a code to a location at all."

"What else could it be?" Benji took the cold can of soda Jane handed him and pressed it to his forehead. "A message from Unknown A to Unknown B says when A receives payment, B will receive a location. B sends payment, and in return gets a file. It has to be the location."

"It's so huge, though," Jane said. She rose and crossed to the decorative mirror on one wall, which had sheets of paper taped across it with the rows of numbers printed on them, three sheets by three sheets in a large square. "It's far too large to be GPS coordinates or a street address or postal code or even directions unless they're the most convoluted scavenger hunt type directions ever given."

"So many of the numbers are repeats," Benji said wearily without opening his eyes. "I tried eliminating all the dups and just running the unique ones, and with the Hallis decrypt, I got the word "glow". Can you do anything with that? 'Cause I sure can't."

"Maybe page numbers in a book?" Ethan stood up again and came to stand with Jane, looking over the printout for the hundredth time.

"It would have to be a readily available book with over 900 pages."

There was a quiet tap at the door, and Jane, recognizing her mother's knock, turned to open it. "Hi, Mom."

"Sweetheart." Celeste set down her purse and a large canvas tote bag at the doorway and embraced her daughter. "Everyone else has taken off. Unless there's anything I can do, I was going to head home as well."

"I can't think of anything." Jane looked back at Ethan, who shook his head slowly. "I'll walk down with you." She briefly laid her head on her mother's shoulder and gave a shuddering sigh.

"The Bible?" Ethan asked from behind the two women, still musing on the columns of numbers. "That's one of the most-distributed books in the world. Might be common enough that all the recipients would know to use it."

"I did try that one," Benji said. He pushed off the loveseat, rolling the soda can around to hold it to the back of his neck. "Just got back gibberish. Like I said, there are too many duplicate numbers." He joined Ethan. "I mean, look at the first row- 934. 934. 934. 934. 934., all the way across. Second row, same thing except for a few 935s, 936s and 937s sprinkled in. Some clusters of 469s and 730s, and then diagonal lines of 869, then rows of 986.987.989, some 319s and 320s... all of it over and over, with no pattern to them. They aren't alpha-numeric, they aren't page numbers, they aren't web addresses, atomic numbers, geographic elevations, they aren't, well, hell, _anything_."

"They _are_ DMC color numbers," Celeste said offhandedly, bending to retrieve her purse.

"Mom, I know you mean well..." Jane's voice trailed off. "But this is really important. Life or death important."

"Sorry." Jane's mother waved her hand, brushing away her words as she turned to go. "Forget I said anything."

"No, wait." Benji's eyes were bulging. "What do you mean, 'DMC color numbers'?"

"Embroidery floss." Celeste stepped around Jane, who threw up her hands and gave a small groan. "DMC is a company that makes needlework threads. Their colors are coded by number. 934, 935, 936... those are all shades of green. So are 469 and 730, and... what else did you say?"

"869," Benji said numbly.

"That's brown. Here, look." Celeste dropped her purse and opened the canvas tote bag, pulling out a clear plastic zip-top bag. It was filled with a square of linen and an embroidery hoop and several dozen colorful skeins of thread, each bound with a small black-and-gold label. She opened the plastic bag, dug through it, and pulled out two skeins and held them out to Benji. "730 and 869. Each different color has a unique number so that stitchers can pick the exact color called for in a pattern."

Benji looked between the thread in his hand and the printouts on the mirror. "And each number is a spool of thread...?"

"Well, they're skeins, not spools, but yes. Designers create patterns on a grid, and each grid square is assigned a color number so that the stitcher can reproduce the pattern on cloth." She reached into her bag and took out a paper pattern. "See? Each square on the pattern has a symbol; each symbol corresponds to a thread color; and each thread color has a number. Every time you see _this_ symbol, you know you need to do a stitch of 730, and every time you see _that_ symbol, you know to do a stitch of 869 and so on. And when all the squares in the grid have been stitched, you have a picture." She turned over the pattern and showed Benji a color picture, of an autumnal mandala formed by leaves and acorns and stylized flowers, all in greens and golds and browns.

He took the pattern from her and stared at it, flipping between the finished color picture on the front and the grid of symbols and the color key on the back. He looked up at the printouts on the mirror. "They're colors. Each number is a color."

"_Maybe_ they're colors," Ethan said cautiously. "Let's not jump to conclusions..."

"They're _colors_! It's a _picture_!" Benji cried. The pattern fluttered to the floor as he grabbed at his short hair with both hands, rocking his head back and forth. "I'm going to need a metric fuckton of thread!"

Celeste _tsked_. "You don't need thread, you need a color conversion chart. There are computer programs..."

"That convert photographs and pictures into patterns," Jane said, darting around the back of the loveseat and reaching for her laptop. "Mom, do you know the name of one?"

"There are freebies on the web, but the best program by far is X's and PhotO's. It's very pricey, though."

Jane reached behind her without looking, snapping her fingers; Ethan was already handing an IMF credit card over her shoulder. "Benji, the software converts pictures to patterns- once I buy it and install it, can you reverse-engineer it to convert a _pattern_ back to a _picture_?"

"Sure, no problem." Benji was staring at the printouts with red-rimmed eyes. "Those fuckers. They've probably got a second mail-drop where they send the software so the customers can convert the file. I just hadn't found it yet."

"Here, go." Jane stood up and Benji took her place, still muttering, "Colors. Those fuckers, it was _colors_."

Fifteen minutes of furious clicking later and Benji paused, licking his dry lips. "Okay, that should do it. The program in its original configuration scans photos, pixelates them, matches pixel shade to thread color number, and produces a chart. I told it to match color number to pixel shade and produce a photo. Loading text file... now."

Unconsciously, Ethan, Jane, and Celeste leaned forward over Benji's shoulders to watch. For a moment nothing happened; and then, across the blank white screen tiny squares of color scattered like confetti. More appeared, filling in small blocks of mostly mottled greens. Finally color swept the entire screen, top to bottom and side to side, running off the edges. Benji clicked a key and the image resized to fit the screen.

It was a topographical view of a hilly, heavily forested area, crossed by two narrow dark lines of roads or trails that intersected near the center. "Where is that?" Ethan asked hoarsely.

"Sending it to IMF servers for mapping now," Benji replied. "Searching." Jane pressed her fist to her mouth as they waited; Ethan's hands were white-knuckled on the back of the loveseat. After several tense moments, Jane's laptop '_pinged_'. "It's got a match," Benji rasped unnecessarily.

"Onscreen," Ethan ordered, and a map opened before them, an uninhabited area where the only thing labeled was two roads. "Sky Manor and Bernards Roads in... Pennsylvania?" he said in disbelief.

"North and west of where we are right now," Benji confirmed.

"Get me a current satellite view."

Benji brought up a satellite overview of the map area. "Not much is out there, it's in the middle of state parkland, preserved wilderness areas. The rendezvous point was probably this intersection since I don't see anything else around."

"Can we get a closer look?" Jane asked, and Benji zoomed in. The crossroad of the two-lane rural roads came into focus, detailed enough to show stop signs at the intersection and a gravel area at one of the four corners.

No buildings. No enclosures. No indication of human activity.

"Someone met the customers here, then took them to the actual location," Ethan guessed.

"And where's that?" Jane whispered, stomach sinking. "They could have driven off _anywhere_."

"Give me a wider view," Ethan said, and when Benji complied, tapped a section of the map. "Maybe right here after all- the state land. It looks pretty empty."

"Be a good place for a hunt," Benji said. He opened a new window and did a search. "It's undeveloped parkland. Restricted activity, meaning no hiking, camping, hunting- Ha!- or fishing. There are no recreational facilities or campsites."

"What's this then?" Ethan pointed to a rectangle of pale reddish-brown, surrounded by a lighter green area, just visible at the edge of the map. "A ranger station?"

"That's too big to be a ranger station." Benji dragged the map to center the structure, then zoomed in. "It's a house- a _big_ one."

"In the middle of a designated wilderness area?" Jane said, skepticism sharpening her voice.

"A lot of parkland was acquired piecemeal, with privately-owned tracts still interspersed where the owners wouldn't sell to the government," Ethan said. He stared at the property. A single, narrow lane led to it through miles of dense forest from the road labeled Sky Manor, and the zoomed-in sat-view showed a band of cleared land completely surrounding it. "There's a perimeter. Find out who owns this."

"It's a corporation," Benji said after a moment. "Il Loggia, Incorporated."

"And who owns that?"

"Hang on, I'm going to have to dig through tax records." Benji rattled at the keyboard and Ethan spun away to pace. Celeste laid a hand between Jane's shoulderblades and rubbed lightly, but Jane barely felt the comforting touch. Benji kept clicking, muttering beneath his breath. "It's down a few layers, pretty buried."

"That's suspicious, right?" Jane asked him. "Someone trying to hide ownership?"

"Maybe. Or maybe just someone trying to dodge taxes, or tangle up the property rights so the government can't unravel it easily and force a sale with eminent domain..."

"Do you need someone at IMF Headquarters to trace it?" Ethan asked impatiently.

"No. Got it." Benji blew out a breath and leaned back. "Partnership of Salvatore DiSabatino and Elizabeth White. I'm starting background checks now."

"Nothing much on her," Benji said minutes later, as data began streaming in. "White is her married name- she's Salvatore's daughter. Widowed, apparently. College graduate, gets some negligible income from something called E&D Designs4U. Him, though... he's interesting. Veteran, Vietnam. Started a construction company on Long Island, New York when he got out of the service, married, wife now deceased. Elizabeth is his only child. Business was small time for ten years or so until he moved to New Jersey and got into the building boom in the 1980s. Acquired a lot of money, fast. He bought the Pennsylvania property in '85, from a guy named Jacobs. Owned a couple of boats for a while, one in Pennsylvania, another moored in Ocean Gate, New Jersey. And then there's this." He looked up at the others. "He's got an AKA- Salvatore "Sam the Hammer" DiSabatino."

"Mob connections?" Jane asked.

"Never convicted, but word was he worked enforcement for the Mannino family." The computer pinged, and Benji opened the new bit of info. "His cousin's kid Joey went away for extortion and racketeering in 1990. DiSabatino "retired" to the Pennsylvania wilderness right around the same time."

"Let's go." Ethan began gathering up scattered papers and dumping them in his briefcase and he made a winding motion at Benji to 'wrap it up'. He snatched up his suit jacket and slung it over his arm. "We'll need to make a stop on the way for hardware."

"Mom." Jane spun and flung her arms around her mother, hugging tightly. "Thank you _so much_. You broke this open for us. I love you."

"I love you, too, sweetheart. Please be careful. And call me when you get your friend back."

"Promise." Jane swiftly kissed Celeste's cheek and then bent to pack up her computer. Ethan came around the loveseat, hands outstretched.

"Ms. Carter," he said, taking her hands in his. "You saved someone's life today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"He's not safe yet," she replied. "Go get him and good luck."

* * *

Every step sent a jolt up Will's leg where it blossomed into hot agony at the top. His vision had narrowed to the forest directly in front of him and more than once a pine branch loomed out of nowhere to swipe the side of his head. He had to concentrate hard on the simple mechanics of walking just to keep putting one foot in front of another.

The ground was sloping steadily uphill, and climbing was actually a little easier than flat ground because he could sort of pull himself along- left leg forward, knee bent, pushing upward on his good leg while grabbing a pine branch in his right hand and pulling, right leg trailing a bit behind and then planting against the ground to brace himself for another forward step with his left. His thigh muscles burned and his breathing was making so much noise he probably wouldn't hear the ATVs coming until after they ran him over, but he was upright (mostly), and still moving (slowly), and so far staying ahead of Blonde Ponytail.

Going down fighting wasn't easy, but that's what he'd set himself to do, and by god he would do it.

A small clearing opened ahead of him; Will stumbled into it, his boots catching and tearing the broomsedge and foxtail grasses that had sprung up without tree cover to block their growth. A pine tree had fallen some time in the past and it lay across the far edge of the clearing, the mass of its rootball blocking the direction he was heading. For a moment he simply stood, confounded, unable to process what he should do next- there was simply a large, immovable object in his path and he could do nothing more than stare dumbly at it. Then he realized his chest was heaving like a bellows with short, rapid breaths and there was a fluttery feeling in his chest.

_Sit down before you fall down_, he'd told Benji after the tech had gotten himself thrown over a railing in Marseille and was weaving woozily on his feet, and Benji had sat and put his head on his knees and said bad words in three languages until they could bundle him off to a hospital. Good advice, but if Will sat down he'd never get standing again and he couldn't find the road sitting under a dead pine tree in the woods. He draped himself over the trunk instead; the bark was dry and flaking and felt sharp against his lacerated stomach, but it was also warm in the afternoon sunshine and he leaned his cheek on it between his outstretched arms and rested.

There was some kind of bass percussion going on in his leg, a low, deep-set _'boom, boom, boom' _that was kind of mesmerizing. After a minute he realized he was probably dehydrating- he'd been dripping cold sweat and hot blood for an hour or more now and he'd better wrestle the pack off his back and take a drink before he passed out.

He got tangled in the straps and had to close his eyes and breathe past a surge of panic and then shrug/shake one arm until the pack unkinked itself and slid down to where he could grab it. The water in the bottle was warm and tasted metallic, but that might have been from the scent of the blood that coated him from belly to knee. The blood did seem to be drying, though- his shirts were stiff across his stomach, and his pant leg, saturated as it had been, also seemed to be stiffening up. He took another drink and then made himself cap the bottle and put it back. The terrain here was much drier than down lower, and he needed to conserve water for the moment. He took out a square of dried fruit, and then, back protesting, hitched the pack back onto his shoulders.

_Boom, boom, boom, boom._ The pounding of the pulse in his leg was getting more intrusive. To distract himself, Will tried to bite off a chunk of dry fruit so chewing on it would counteract the throbbing rhythm. Even the small effort of biting through the dense square made him dizzy. All his reactions seemed hyper-exaggerated- the confusion over the fallen tree, the claustrophobia of getting hung up in his pack, the annoyance at the thumping pulse. _Signs of shock_, he noted vaguely, and closed his eyes, tilting his face up to the warm sunshine.

He couldn't rest for long. He had to keep moving, because he had a goal. An objective. Somewhere north of his position was a road. There had to be- a car had driven on it to reach The Lodge... yesterday? No, the night before... wasn't it? Okay, he might not be exactly clear on time passed, but he did know a car had driven up. He'd heard it, had heard tires on gravel.

An objective, yeah. To find that road the car had driven on and to walk along it. All roads led somewhere, and when he found it, it would eventually lead him somewhere, anywhere, other than this godforsaken wilderness.

He could do that much. Even with a bullet through him, a contusion the size of a hubcap on his back and a stomach that had been run across a giant grater, he could hike out of backcountry. It was just walking, after all.

Chewing was proving to be too much of an effort; Will tucked the chunk of dry fruit into his cheek where he could simply suck at it and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. There was dirt and blood engrained in the creases of his skin and the rims of his nails, and his palm was sticky with pine tar from hauling himself uphill by grabbing branches.

Well, he'd let Ethan lure him back to the field again, hadn't he? And being in the field meant getting dirty.

_Focus, Brandt. Stop drifting._

He straightened his bowed back and looked at the base of the fallen tree, its old, dead roots reaching like clawed hands from the mass of the rootball. Water, food, a brief rest- break-time was over. Will took one unsteady step and it set off a catalog of hurts but he forced his right leg to follow and then he was walking- okay, shuffling- through the tangles of dry summer grasses choking the fallen tree, skirting the leaf-drifted hole torn in the ground when it had fallen. And then he was clear of it and half-crawling up a hill slippery with years of shed pine needles, copper-colored in the shafts of sunlight slanting between the trees.

_Keep moving. Stay ahead of Blonde Ponytail. Find the road._

He reached for a branch on the next tree up the hill and pulled himself onward.

* * *

The man who called himself the Coordinator sat at his desk, hands resting on the arms of his old-fashioned wooden rolling chair. He made no pretense of working- he wasn't reviewing applications, or reading surveillance reports; he wasn't tracing the maze of his off-shore accounts, watching his money shuttle covertly from virtual bank to virtual bank; he wasn't even playing solitaire on the computer resting on the scuffed leather top of his desk. He simply sat, eyes fixed on the digital picture frame that rested front and center on the desk.

Elizabeth had given it to him for Christmas one year when she was feeling maudlin. She'd dug out all the old photographs he had packed away after her mother passed and had selected a hundred or so to scan- or, more likely, had someone else scan them for her- and loaded them into the frame. She had been so pleased with herself for coming up with the idea- now he could pore over them without effort, without sifting through dusty old shoeboxes of deckle-edged black and whites, without lugging heavy albums out of storage and leafing through pages that crumbled with a touch.

He should have thrown the whole mess of them away when he sold the Montvale house.

Now whenever he sat at his desk, a parade of disappointments scrolled slowly, endlessly past him. There, his parents- side by side on the front lawn of their house in Farmingville, his father with that old-fashioned hat he wore everywhere, his mother with her stockings rolled down around her thick, hairy ankles. They had never lost their accents, their penchant for loud, gesticulating arguments in public, or their ability to embarrass him utterly. There, his wife on their wedding day- a demure veil on her hair and a pearl at her throat. Little did he know that June day as they posed for the stiff, formal portraits that she would never be more than arms' reach from a cigarette and a wager again, that gossip and coffee klatches would take precedence over scrubbing and cooking. There, his only grandson, Daniel, on his christening day- now currently occupying a locked ward at a residential center after setting one too many fires and gutting one too many neighborhood dogs. And there, the fruit of his loins, his darling daughter Elizabeth in her own wedding finery- and look how _that_ fiasco had turned out. Although ridding Ellie of the candy-ass had laid the groundwork for the hunts.

At least Ellie had turned out to be truly gifted in acquiring assets for his little recreational games.

The rough roar of an ATV approaching The Lodge at top speed caused the Coordinator to frown and swivel his chair to face the office door. There should be no reason for Grecco to be tearing across the property like that; that he was doing so meant someone had fouled up, and when someone fouled up, it usually meant he personally had to clean up a mess before it metastasized. Frowning harder, he listened as the ATV skidded to a halt outside the piazza door in a spray of pea gravel- someone was going to have to rake that smooth again- and then heavy footsteps pounded down the hall to his office.

Grecco gave one hard bang on the door and burst in without waiting for permission. The Coordinator rose behind his desk, glaring menacingly. "You better have a damn good reason for this, Christophe," he barked.

His sentry didn't look cowed by the sharp greeting. "We have a problem."

"I saw the flare. I don't want a payoff cutting in to my profit- am I going to have to eliminate a client?"

"Not that kind of problem." Grecco pulled the blue fatigue cap off his head and swiped a sleeve across his sweating face. "The prey got out."

The Coordinator's head snapped back. "Got out _where_?"

"Out of the fence. Davison saw him go over. She's at the south border where he took off."

"_How the hell did he get out?_"

"She thinks he did something to interrupt the power flow in the fence. She's the only one left- she said he took down the others. She said he climbed over, but by the time she got there, the fence was hot again. Says she can't go after him until we pull the plug."

A hectic flush had risen up the Coordinator's neck and across his cheekbones. For a second he stood, eyes blazing at his man, his teeth bared slightly. Then he sucked in a sharp breath; his face smoothed and he no longer looked on the verge of ripping out someone's throat with his teeth.

"I'll kill the power," he said with icy calm. "You get Belardo and the other quad and get out there and run him to ground. Take radios and firearms and coordinate the search with Davison. I don't need to tell you what'll happen if I'm forced to liquidate The Lodge, do I?"

"No, sir."

The Coordinator reached back and centered his chair precisely beneath the desk. "And Christophe?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Shoot to kill."

* * *

To be continued.

I'm hoping there won't be a delay with the next chapter, but I have to go out of town for two days without internet access, so sorry in advance if I don't get the next one out as quickly. Thank you for understanding, and thank you all for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

Will's boots were dragging slower and slower, and his steps were getting shorter and shorter as he wove drunkenly through the trees. After a minute- or several, he wasn't sure- he became aware that he had drifted to a halt next to a blocky outcropping of rock. One hand had fallen to the horizontal strata and his head sagged as he fought to catch his breath. The sun shone full on the west face of the low cliff and the warmth that had soaked into it felt good on his clammy skin. The trees had thinned out as he'd climbed; the ground here was too stony to support anything larger than underbrush and a few struggling pines and he knew he should keep going and find thicker cover... but his feet were refusing to move. He made to lift his other arm and after a measurable delay it obeyed, and Will laid both hands flat on the outcropping.

Warm. Deep, radiating warmth, flowing from the striated surface into his chilled skin. He tipped forward, inching one arm up to curve above his head and letting his chest and cheek rest on the rock, practically hugging it.

He shouldn't be this cold. Vaguely, in a far-off corner of his brain, he remembered it was a hot summer day, sun blazing down from a clear dome of sky, and he should be itching to strip off his remaining shirts and find an icy mountain creek to splash in.

Instead he wanted to crawl up on the outcropping and bake in its heat like roadkill on a desert highway.

_You'll **be** roadkill if you don't keep it together._

His rasping breaths and hammering pulse were quieting now that he had stopped. He could hear things again other than the rushing in his head- the first stirrings of the evening's breeze ruffling the weeds; the placid chirp of a robin in a nearby spicebush; the scuff of his boots and the scrape of his blood-stiffened shirts against rock.

The undulating whine of a small engine in the distance.

For one elated second Will thought he was hearing a car on the elusive road he sought; and then he recognized the sound was all wrong for a car- too high and thin, with the dopplering rise-and-fall effect of a vehicle bouncing over rough ground. Some kind of all-terrain vehicle, probably with an armed guard operating it.

_'There's your ride out, Agent Brandt,'_ Ethan's voice said crisply in his head. Phantom-Ethan was right- it would be a helluva lot easier to climb on an ATV and have it carry him through the woods until he found the road out than to keep struggling along on foot.

All he had to do was take it.

The engine was a bit closer now, though Will couldn't see it on the hillside below him. He could climb up onto the pile of rock he was propped against and use it as a sniper's nest, aiming downhill to pick off the rider as soon as he appeared. Stretched out on his belly, arms braced on rock, even in his current less-than-steady state he could make the shot.

Will straightened from his slouch and his back protested sharply. Instinctively he lifted one hand and reached around to brace the screaming muscles. The forest lurched in response, tilting around him strangely, and a sudden roaring in his ears drowned the approaching ATV.

His legs didn't feel connected to the ground. Will flung his hand back out and felt his fingertips smack rough stone, but then they were dragging, bumping down the corrugated surface without purchase...

_No-_ . . .

Waking was like surfacing from a deep pit of night-black water, rising languidly back into daylight. Will's head pounded; he drew in a shallow gasp of air and the darkness drained to the edges of his vision like ebbing waves.

Something _hurt_. As soon as he noted it, the pain took over and finished waking him with a hard jolt. Something that might have been a yelp twisted past his heavy tongue.

The sound, harsh in the deceptive tranquility of the forest, startled him back into silence.

Will lay still, letting the pain roll over him in waves and sweep the fog from his brain. The ATV's noise hadn't grown any louder; he could still hear it, a high, almost staccato whine, but it was muffled by distance. He was on the ground and there was scrubby grass beneath his slack hands and the rock outcropping soared above his head toward a blue, blue sky.

Either the rider had passed without spotting Will, or he hadn't reached his elevation yet- Will was a little unclear on which direction the engine noise was coming from.

He should probably get under cover while he figured it out.

He managed to sort out that he was sprawled mostly on his back, with his left arm and shoulder partially twisted beneath him. The deep, wrenching pain that was like a giant knot being inexorably drawn tighter? That was the pack he was lying on, digging into his bullet-bruised back. The searing pain like a hot brand pressed to his skin? That was the bullet wound scored across his hip.

It was probably bleeding again.

With a grunt, Will rolled higher onto his left side and then pushed against the ground until he was sitting. He _really_ didn't want to stand up again and put weight on that leg. When he moved his hand to his hip, he could feel wetness soaking through the dried bandaging.

Yep, definitely bleeding again.

The engine sound was still distant, but now it was in stereo. There was one ATV below him on the mountain, and a second one above. As Will listened, the one below grew momentarily louder before slowly fading out again.

The rider wasn't coming straight up the mountainside, he was zigzagging, climbing in increments as he swept back and forth across the steep slope of the hill.

Will had a little breathing room- they had only a general idea of where he'd gone after he crossed the fence and they were doing a sort of grid search, hoping to flush him out.

Okay then, he'd stay put, wait for one or the other rider to come to him. He'd pick one off as soon as he got close and steal his ride.

It was strategic, nothing to do with the fact that the minute he took a step, he would be facedown in the weeds again.

Will edged backward until his shoulders were propped gingerly on the rocks, his legs flopped before him. He was shaky with the aftershocks of passing out and falling, and the warmth still felt damned good. He leaned into it, spreading his arms and pressing them flat to the radiant surface. Tilting his head back against sun-warmed stone sent another wave of dizziness through him; Will blinked and lolled forward before he passed out again. His hand fell to his hip and he hitched forward to survey the damage his fall had done.

A newly-wet spot wilted the dark, stiffened fabric in an oval just below his hipbone. Wearily Will jerked at his belt buckle until it opened and then he rolled up onto his left side to push at his pants. The bandages were all bunched in a tangled clump that sagged halfway down his pantleg. They had been soaked and dried and weren't doing a damn thing to slow the fresh crawl of blood.

He pushed at the pack straps and hunched his shoulders until the pack slid to the ground behind him. Seizing the hems of both shirts, Will closed his eyes and bit back a growl of pain as he peeled them both up and over his head, dropping them to his lap and shivering as the freshening breeze brushed his bare chest and back.

_Time to get a betting pool going- what's going to kill you first? Exposure? Dehydration? Or the ever-popular blood loss?_

Somewhere in a pocket were the extra socks he'd been so generously provided at the start of this excursion. Will bent forward, biting back another yelp, and stretched to get his hands into pockets that were now down around his knees. He found the socks under the gun in his left front pocket. When he straightened back up, he felt dried blood crack and flake off his belly. A quick swipe of his hand told him the razor-wire cuts hadn't split open again.

Small mercies.

He got the mess of torn, blood-hardened bedsheets unpinned and peeled off his leg. Blonde Ponytail's bullet had carved a deep groove across the plane of his hip; Will laid both socks along the seeping welt, and the grey wool slowly darkened before he covered them with the folded-up t-shirt.

He'd miss the extra layer come nightfall, but he'd miss his pulse more if he bled out.

The longest strip of sheet was stained but still usable as binding. This time Will threaded it between his legs, into the crease of his thigh, crossed it over the makeshift bandages, and then twisted it around his waist. The effort left a slick sheen of sweat coating his skin and his chest heaving in rapid pants. Darkness was creeping in at the edges of his vision again and he closed his eyes, willing it to retreat while his fingers fumbled through the motions of tying a tight square knot.

He fell back against the rocks, still panting. The ATVs had grown loud enough to be audible over the roar in his ears- he needed to be ready for them, but every time he opened his eyes, amorphous black shapes slid across his vision. Will's brow furrowed and he scrunched up his eyes and gave his head a short, irritated shake... and then he felt a jolt that clacked his teeth together. When he got his eyes open, he was staring at the base of the outcropping where it met the ground, a drift of crumbled gravel beneath his cheek, summer-browned clumps of moss an inch from his nose, the grey-green ruffles of lichen spreading out from a shaded sort of alcove beneath the lowest shelf of rock. For several long beats he couldn't place where he had ended up.

The grumbling whine of one of the ATVs was drawing closer, weaving in and out amongst the thicker trees lower on the slope. Will remembered he was planning to shoot the driver, take his quad, and ride it to safety.

He needed his gun for that.

His gun was... in the pocket of the pants that were currently twisted around his bare knees.

Out of reach unless he sat up or hauled his pants up.

Neither of which was an option at this particular moment.

Some dim corner of his brain found a perverse sort of humor in his situation- _Good going, Brandt. Literally caught with your pants down. Oh, Benji's gonna love this one._

The engine noise needled Will into motion. He rocked to one side, then the other, then used the slight momentum and his hands trapped beneath him to roll himself into the alcove, a crevice barely bigger than his prone body eroded from the base of the outcropping. It was close and heated from the long stretch of afternoon sunshine and even though Will was once more lying on top of the backpack, weeds were sticking to his sweat-damp skin, and it didn't have the height of the crest of the outcropping, it wasn't bad as a vantage point. The long-sleeved thermal shirt was twisted around his middle, and he spread one hand over it, holding it to his sliced stomach while he scraped deeper into the crack and turned to face the woods. The gun was a hard lump beneath one knee, and he curled that leg up, fingers scrabbling downwards, trying to snag the edge of his pocket to pull it upward.

All the rolling and twisting sent another rush of dizziness through him. Tucked into the shallow cave like a fox gone to ground, blackness swept across his eyes and pulled him under.

* * *

When he woke this time, it took him several panicked seconds to realize the light was dimming, not his eyesight. The sun had dipped below the hills and shadows pooled beneath the sparse trees and in the hollows of the rocks.

The ATVs were only a dual faint buzz in the distance- he'd missed his chance to ambush one of them.

On the other hand, they hadn't found him, so Will guessed he could count that as a draw.

With wincing slowness, he began working his way out of the crevice, propelling himself on elbows and left knee. Shivers triggered as much by his lack of clothing as shock rattled him.

Passing out half-naked hadn't been his most brilliant move ever.

Finally free of the crevice, Will tipped slowly into a sitting position and took stock. Bleeding- controlled again. Head- no longer swirling like a vortex. The respite, even if it had been more passing out than sleeping, had done him a bit of good. His tongue was nearly sticking to the roof of his mouth though. He reached back, found the pack, and dragged it out of the hole beneath the rock. The water bottle was about half full; he flipped open the cap and sucked down all but a last couple of swallows. He'd just have to find another creek.

He rooted through the pack for another bug wipe- the day's blackflies had been replaced by evening mosquitoes- and a package of painkillers. Those weren't doing much good but they were better than nothing and might take the edge off. He was pretty sure he had missed lunch, too- the whole middle part of the day wasn't much more than a blur. There were still some power bars left so he peeled one open and bit chunks of it off while he eased the thermal back over his head and smoothed it over his sore front and back.

Now for the fun part. Will shoved everything- bottle, first aid kit, wrappers- back in the pack and settled it in place. And then, one hand clamped on the waistband of his pants, he walked the other up the rocky wall until he was standing and could ease his pants back in place over the bandages and button up.

Yeah, that was a lot less breezy.

There wasn't anything else to do but start walking. He'd just have to be careful where he placed his feet in the darkness. It wouldn't be hard to avoid the ATVs, but he'd have to keep alert for Blond Ponytail, since he wouldn't be able to hear her coming. _You need more water_, Will reminded himself._ And you can't get out until you find the road, and you won't find the road by sitting around on your shot-up ass_.

Walking would keep him warmer anyway. Night hadn't fully fallen and already there was a distinct bite to the air. A sharp breeze sighed through the trees, lifting Will's sweat-matted hair and trailing an icy finger down his neck. He took one careful step, testing his weight on his bad leg. It held- the throbbing leapt from a nagging ache to full-blown pounding- but it didn't collapse beneath him.

The AVTs were both above him now, one off to the left, nearer to the fenceline, the other more distantly to the right. Their sound was carried from far away on the breeze as they crisscrossed the mountainside, but Will moved cautiously through the dusk anyway, aware that Blonde Ponytail wouldn't come with the warning bell of engine noise. He paused often to listen, and to strain his eyes past the shadows of growing darkness.

The sky was still a deep midnight blue when he reached the top of the ridge; he dropped to his belly despite knowing the difficulty he was going to have getting back on his feet, and crawled over the crest rather than leave himself silhouetted against the sky. A grassy meadow, alive with a full chorus of night insects, spread below the ridge, and he half-slid, half-crept down the slope to its level ground. Dense, leafy forest ringed the far edges of it.

He sat for a long moment, elbows braced on the incline behind him, tempted to lean back and lose himself in the night sky. Stars were beginning to glint in the velvety darkness; to his right, an ambient glow below distant rounded mountaintops marked where the moon would soon rise. Thick grass padded the ground and below it was dirt he could smear over the pale oval of his face. He had a better-than-180-degree view of the surrounding area and he could sit, melt into the gloom, and wait to see who stumbled into his gunsights.

An ATV engine surged somewhere beyond the tree at the far edge of the meadow. It seemed to be moving at a pretty good clip; Will pushed higher on his elbows, oriented on the sound, and followed its unseen path, his head swiveling from right to left as it passed.

Definitely moving too fast for wooded ground. He heaved himself to his feet, barely wobbling in his sudden excitement.

_That has to be the road over there!_

The engine dwindled to a low, idling rumble. Will slid the gun from his pocket and set off across the meadow towards it. He'd gotten about halfway across when even that nominal sound cut off completely. The rider had parked somewhere ahead and Will picked up his pace, thumping unevenly in a fast, heavy limp, his fingers wrapped tight around the gun's grip.

_One shot. One shot is all I need to get a ride._

He had to slow once he hit the trees; it was darker beneath the canopy, and the brush slowed him. He hit a patch of oaks mixed with the maple and ash trees and his boots rolled on the rounded debris of years' worth of acorns, nearly throwing him.

And then the engine roared back to life, only a stone's throw away. Will ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and scrambled forward, ignoring the hot jabs shooting from his hip. Just ahead was a break in the murk, pale shafts of moonlight slanting down into a passage between the trees, and he lunged toward it.

Too late. The ATV slewed around in a spray of gravel, a sweep of headlights briefly illuminating the tree trunks. The engine revved as it took off down a narrow, stone-chip roadway, passing right in front of Will. He dropped to one knee, snapping the gun up in a two-handed grasp, but the rider was past before he could fire, the twin red pinpoints of its taillights receding into the night.

There was a loud, hollow _'thud'_ to the left where the ATV had just departed from, and Will whipped around. Something made a drawn-out metallic rattle and then clash, followed by a heavy _'snap'_- a gate being dragged shut and locked. Will stepped out from the trees and hobbled through the thick shadows at the edge of the lane. The trees opened out ahead and as he got nearer he could see the fenceline, bisected by the now-locked gate. Behind it, a slight boy wearing a backwards baseball cap was just sliding behind the wheel of a two-passenger golf cart; the long nozzle of a plastic gas can poked out over the lip of the back cargo bay where he had tossed it. He punched the cart into motion and it moved away down the lane with a quiet electric hum.

Will let it go. Even if he got a clear shot at the kid without him alerting anyone, he still had the gate to contend with. It might not be electrified- it had sounded like the kid had handled it fearlessly- but he could see the padlock hanging from the latch and the loops of razor wire festooning the top rail. Scaling it wasn't going to be viable in his current condition.

Neither was taking on the Coordinator and whatever defenses he had set up at The Lodge. Maybe that had been an option before he'd taken a bullet, but it sure wasn't now.

He turned and faced away down the lane. The ATVs buzzed in the distance, still zigzagging in their search for him. He was disappointed he wasn't getting a chance at a ride, but he could walk, let the lane lead him out even if it took all night. If a vehicle approached, he'd hear it coming and could duck into cover and take his shot. Tedious, and exhausting, but he'd avoid an attempted assault on The Lodge with dwindling ammo.

As plans went, he'd certainly known worse.

The gravel lane meandered for miles, the heavy forest crowding close in the periphery; it followed, as far as Will could tell in the darkness, a fairly flat path just below the highest ridgeline. He could hear the ATVs on the far side of that ridge- they seemed to be concentrating now on the wooded hillside he'd so laboriously climbed. He kept going with grim determination, setting his pace to the deep throb that had set up permanent residence in his bones.

His perseverance was rewarded at last by a second gate looming out of the murk. This one was a simple barricade- heavy posts set on either side of the lane, a hinged crossbar secured with a thick chain that blocked access. A sign was tacked to the bar; it was difficult to read in the scant moonlight, but Will thought he could make out the words 'Private' and 'Patrolled'. And beyond it, running perpendicular to the lane, was an actual two-lane road.

Will could have dropped to his knees and kissed the pavement.

If, of course, he could have done that without face-planting.

Instead he hitched his butt up onto the crossbar to take the weight off his feet while he rested and considered his options; they were pretty simple- left or right.

There were no street signs to offer information, no street lights or traffic to point out a populated area in either direction. It was still silent except for the night insects, and, distantly, the high, repetitive song of spring peepers, indicating there was a water source somewhere. Will was parched, his throat and tongue dry and sticking, and his limbs felt leaden from more than just exhaustion and pain. Judging by the position of the moon, left led north, higher into the hills, and right led south, heading down into a valley. If he had to guess, the valley would be the more likely direction to find water, as well as houses or maybe some kind of store, a garage with a car he could hotwire or a phone he could borrow.

Left it was. Will sat for another minute, listening to the uninterrupted trill of insects, and cautiously rolling his shoulders to loosen his back and his ankles to stretch his aching feet. Then he pushed up, wobbling once until he'd found his balance, and continued on.

The moon wheeled overhead as he plodded along, marking off one slow hour, then a second. At some point he realized he didn't hear the ATVs anymore- whether from distance or because they had stopped for a break, he didn't know. A few bats skimmed past his head, darker flutters against a dark sky, and once he heard the eerie scream of a rabbit in its death-throes. The second wind he'd acquired with finding the road was starting to fade; after he'd stumbled for the third time off the pavement into the soft shoulder, he veered into the middle to follow the barely visible center line.

It grew darker still as the moon sank slowly behind the treetops. Will was having trouble focusing on the faint line and he was weaving as if he was failing a sobriety test. Finally he drifted to a stop, his breath wheezing; the dark countryside rotated around him like water circling a drain.

He was done. Another step and he'd be waking up with road rash on his face- if he woke up at all. Swaying gently, he surveyed the area; the right side of the road was bounded by cliffs, but the left side dropped off into a slope thick with hemlock trees. Their branches swept the ground in a dense screen.

Good enough. Will fixed his gaze on the trees and tottered across the road and off the shoulder, pushing down into the thicket. Soft-needled branches brushed his body as he worked his way deeper into the hemlocks, ricocheting gently off one trunk, then another. Finally they closed around him in a hushed shelter.

He thought he would sit down and finish the last gulp of water. And then he spilled onto a spongy layer of needles and he was spiraling down and was gone.

* * *

For the second morning in a row, exuberant birdsong dragged him awake before the sun rose. Will woke shivering, miserable with cold and thirst. He uncurled with difficulty, shedding dry needles as he inched upright against the tree he huddled under. His back no longer wrenched with every movement, but maybe he was simply noticing it less because the pain radiating from his hip consumed him. With shaking hands he widened the rip in his pantleg, too wrung out to wrestle with belt and pants. The bandages were still in place, adhered with dried blood. When he worked his grubby fingers beneath them, the scratchy wool stuck to the wound, forcing a hiss from between his clenched teeth. The skin stretched over his hip felt hot to his probing fingers and Will cursed silently to himself.

There wasn't anything to be done about it. He pushed the bandages back into place and dug out the water bottle and first aid kit. There was only a swallow left, and one packet of pills; with no reason to save them, he downed both. A few packages of food remained in the bottom of the pack and he picked one at random and tore it open.

Peanut butter granola. He'd sworn never to touch peanut butter again after a particularly long stretch in college when he'd subsisted on nothing but peanut butter crackers and ramen, but right now it tasted like ambrosia. He lifted the wrapper and poured every last crumb into his mouth and then his meager breakfast was over and it was time to go.

With every step, a red-hot poker drilled his leg muscles. He fixed dry, aching eyes on the center line once more and stumped along it, sharp huffs of breath punched out with each footfall. Gradually the sky lightened enough that he could pick out features around him- the cliffs to his right diminished and were replaced by boulder-strewn banks of mountain laurel and fern, and ahead a guardrail bordered the left shoulder. He was beginning to think the road led nowhere, trailing on forever through endless forest.

And then a traffic sign emerged from the pre-dawn gloom, its yellow diamond marked with a black arrow. Will staggered past the lone indicator that civilization existed somewhere beyond the trees. Rounding the warned-for curve in the road, an even more welcome sight greeted him- a bridge. And not just a bridge over a dry gully or low spot in the terrain- as he drew closer he heard the rush of water passing beneath it.

Ignoring the fevered throbbing, Will increased his pace to a hurried limp and a moment later had half-collapsed against the parapet, peering over the concrete-topped stonework at the glorious, tumbling, _wet_ mountain stream below.

Parched beyond bearing, he rounded the end of the bridge and lurched down the embankment. The creek cascaded through a narrow, rocky channel beneath the bridge before widening into a deep stream that flowed off between the trees, and he moved downstream, away from the sharp boulders filling the channel near the bridge abutments, shrugging the pack down his arms as he went.

The water was clear as glass- even in the murky light he could see straight to the water-smoothed rocks at the bottom. Silky brown algae coated them, waving in the swift current and fringing the edges of the bank he crouched on. He put out a hand for balance and plunged the other, holding the water bottle, into the stream to fill. The water was icy cold but he was too thirsty to care that his hand numbed instantly. He clapped the filter cap back on and screwed it tight and raised it to his mouth. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head at the first delicious swallow. Will tipped sideways, thumping down with his leg extended at an awkward angle and squeezed another crisp, cold draught over his parched lips and tongue. The water rolled in an icy lump in his stomach and he shivered and forced himself to pause and lower the bottle before he made himself sick.

He sat on the stream bank, alternating careful swallows and counting out minutes until he'd emptied it. Another shiver rattled through him, hard enough that he nearly dropped the bottle, and he tucked it between his knees so it didn't bounce away down the rocks. He rubbed his hands briskly together. He was just cold from the long night spent in the mountain air and the sudden shock of icy water; he'd warm up as soon as the sun rose. He rolled up onto one knee to refill the bottle and caught a new sound over the rushing water.

Or not _new_ exactly- he'd been hearing it off and on for nearly twenty-four hours.

It was the distinctive whine of an ATV approaching.

Will dragged the gun out of his pocket and flipped over, scrambling bent-over on hands and feet up the bank. The engine's buzz grew louder; the rider was flying down the road Will had just travelled, and there were mere seconds before he crossed the bridge and was past.

He threw a quick glance up the embankment, taking in its height in a glance, and then he pushed off in a mighty stride, propelling himself back up toward the road. The next step on his right leg sent a shaft of hot, bone-deep pain roiling through him, but the temptation of a ride was too great and he ignored it and lunged higher.

His head cleared the rim of the bridge just as the rider rounded the curve in the road. Will planted his right boot deep in the steep slope, ignoring the sick clench in his thigh, snapped the gun up, and fired.

The rider saw him pop up and wrenched the wheel, tires squealing on the pavement as the quad went into a sideways skid. Will had a flashing glimpse of a dark blue cap pulled low and broad shoulders bunching to control the vehicle before the rider's head snapped back and his hands flew up into the air. And then he was falling, backflipping right over the rear of the ATV to tumble across the road.

And it was still coming.

Momentum carried the ATV in the direction of its skid, right toward the bridge where Will was braced. He didn't have time to think; he tucked his head down and his gun arm to his chest and he threw himself sideways, away from the path of the out-of-control vehicle. It smashed into the side of the bridge with a heavy, crumpling _'thud'_ just as he took a leaping step down the bank.

_Aw, hell, that better not ding up my ride,_ he had time to think and then he was landing hard, white-hot agony shooting up his leg, up his spine, to explode against the inner surface of his skull. A scatter of debris flew past his head, blurred from motion and the tears suddenly flooding his eyes, and he ducked sharply. His boots skidded on the mossy bank; Will yelped and flung up an arm for balance but his leg folded beneath him. He pitched over the side.

Will hit the stream with a _'slap'_ that resounded above the rushing noise of the current and frigid water closed over him and sucked him down.

* * *

"That's some serious security for a hunting lodge," Benji commented quietly.

Ethan took the binoculars from him and scanned the gated fence that blocked the lane. "_Something's_ off here," he agreed. "The height and the razor wire are overkill for someone who just wants a little privacy."

"Oh, the razor wire is perfectly reasonable," Benji said sarcastically. "It's the high voltage line running through it that makes it overkill." He threw a glance back toward the SUV parked just out of sight down the gravel lane. "I've equipment in the car to disable it, but we'll have to move fast once I do in case there's some kind of fail-safe alarm. The map shows it's another few miles to the house once we get inside the perimeter."

"We're not waiting for a warrant?" Jane asked. She didn't sound disapproving, simply asking for clarification.

"We're not waiting," Ethan confirmed, sweeping the binoculars over the fenceline again. "You picking anything up on thermal?"

"There's a hot spot on the left-hand support post."

"It's a camera," Benji said. "Not a problem, I'm looping it now." He had a mini laptop open on the ground before him, and he clicked rapidly at it for several moments before nodding sharply. "Got it."

"I'll bring the car up," Ethan said, handing the binoculars back to Benji. "Carter, you cover Dunn and as soon as he cuts the power, open the gate. We'll go from there."

Jane and Benji nodded, exchanging glances as Ethan rolled to his feet and jogged back to retrieve the car. Neither mentioned the fact that he hadn't bothered with assigning code names, nor had he waited to go through IMF channels to assemble a recovery team. He seemed focused and intense rather than recklessly impatient though.

The car crunched over gravel and slid to a stop just short of the gate. Ethan lowered his window to watch while Benji leapt up from their concealed spot in the underbrush to retrieve his kit. Jane slipped out to shadow him, turning in a slow circle with her gun in ready position and scanning the pre-dawn darkness that surrounded them. "It's so damn quiet."

"Yeah." Benji dumped the bag at the foot of the gate and pulled a small handheld scanner from one of the loops, thumbing it on. "I thought I heard an engine earlier, though."

"Me, too." Jane moved around behind the tech, shifting to aim back down the lane. "I don't hear it anymore."

"Ummm... Huh." Benji snapped off the scanner and shoved it back in his tac bag. "Did we bring bolt cutters?"

Ethan stuck his head out the car window. "In the back- why?"

"The power's already dead. I just need to cut the lock and we're through."

Jane lowered her gun a notch and frowned. "Dead."

"Yeah. Don't know if that's good or bad, but the power feed's already been switched off- or cut, I can't tell from here." Benji hustled around the car and returned with heavy-duty cutters. A moment later the lock fell in pieces that he kicked aside while they rolled the gate back, the chainlink rattling and the razor-wire coils swaying with the motion.

"Element of surprise," Ethan said grimly as they piled back in. "We're going fast and we're hitting the house hard. Take down anyone who moves, but leave DiSabatino alive in case we don't find Brandt on the first sweep."

Gravel spit from beneath the tires as the car surged forward. Ethan left the headlights off and seemed to navigate the dark lane by instinct, his passengers swaying, shoulders bumping as they clung to the seatbacks. A huge house- some sort of misplaced villa- loomed ahead, towering pale-colored walls just visible in the darkness. The lane split, one branch heading toward the back of the building, the other looping around front past an opulent fountain illuminated by garden spot lights. Ethan braked hard at the fork.

"Carter, back," he snapped. "Dunn, front, with me." He threw open his door and popped the back as Jane slipped away and by the time Benji had exited his door, Ethan was striding fast with a ram swinging from one hand. Benji covered him as he took the stairs in a leap, crossed the porch, and smashed the ram against the front door. The heavy wood splintered near the hasp, the ornate door flying open and crashing on the inside wall. Ethan let the ram drop, snatching out his holstered gun. "Carter?"

"I'm in. It's a garage, five bays, two empty," Jane said over the comm. "Entering house now."

Ethan and Benji stood in a soaring entry hall, a broad staircase curving up the rear wall; a chandelier, dripping with crystals and turned to its lowest setting, cast a golden glow over polished wood and marble. The hall parted around the foot of the staircase, disappearing into the back of the house; a crash came from the direction of the right hallway, concurrent with Jane's quiet announcement, "I'm in; kitchen."

"I'll take the left," Ethan said. He jerked his head at the staircase. "Dunn, up."

A voice, shrill with surprise, came from the direction Jane was infiltrating, "Hey! What..." and her voice on the comm overlaid it, "One hostile." and then loud, harsh- "DOWN. DOWN. ON YOUR FACE." There was a crash, and a scream, young, male, "DON'T SHOOT! Please! Don't shoot me!"

Benji ran lightly up the staircase, pressed to the heavy banister, his head craned to watch overhead as he climbed. A flicker of movement over an upper floor railing had him jerking his gun higher, but then light footsteps retreated, somewhere above. "I have one on the second floor."

"Take him," Ethan commanded, moving down the left-hand hallway. A wide archway opened on his left to a palatial sitting room; a pair of low-wattage sconces flanking a wide marble fireplace showed it was empty. He moved further back and the hallway opened behind the staircase to a long dining room, one door, open, at the far end behind which he could hear Jane securing her hostile, another in the back wall, this one closed.

Instinct- gut feeling- told him to breach the closed door. He took one sweeping glance of the hall, the dining room, both deserted, and then strode across the marble expanse, raising one leg to smash a booted foot next to the knob.

Behind the door, a tall, bald man stood at a broad mahogany desk; one of its side drawers hung open. He raised a Beretta when the door crashed open, firing as Ethan slammed into the room. Ethan ducked and rolled around the doorframe and kept coming. The man fired again, and again, backing up as he did so; both shots went wide.

Ethan strode across the room, his eyes hot and dark. He backhanded the gun from the man's hand and grabbed a fistful of his shirt.

DiSabatino. He recognized him from Benji's briefing dossier. Ethan rocked the man back against the wall behind the desk, hard. The wall shuddered; a painting, a dark, dramatically shadowed still life, slipped from its hook and fell with a crash. Ethan slammed DiSabatino against the wall again, knocking his head into the plaster, and then yanked him forward and shoved him down into the desk chair. The force of the shove sent the chair rolling backwards to crack into the wall.

Ethan whipped his gun around and leveled it at DiSabatino's forehead. "_Where is he?_"

The man's face hardened into a small, disdainful smirk. "I don't know."

The _'crack'_ of Ethan's hand connecting with his cheek echoed across the office. "You _are_ going to tell me where he is."

DiSabatino raised both hands from the arms of the desk chair in a 'What can I do?' gesture. "Sorry. I can't help you."

Ethan's gaze shot around the office. A sideboard to his right held liquor bottles, glasses, a bowl of fruit and another of nuts. Ethan snatched up the heavy steel nutcracker from beside the bowls, caught the man's arm, and dragged him forward in the chair, slamming his hand down onto the desk.

"I have one secure," Jane's voice came quietly over the comm. "Dunn?"

"Second floor, could use another pair of eyes. I know there's someone up here."

"On my way."

Jane raced out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time. Over her comm she heard Ethan's glacial voice. "Last chance." A man's grunt of pain followed. His grunt became a groan, then a keening whine. Something _'crunched'_, and the man screamed.

Ethan's voice carried over the shriek to the comms in their ears, deadly and menacing. "Where. is. my. agent."

"I don't know!" DiSabatino's voice was a hoarse scream, all bravado peeled from it. "He got out! You understand? He got over the fence and off the property." He broke off, wheezing. "He's somewhere in the mountains. I don't know where."

* * *

You don't mess with Ethan's people!

To be continued, and thank you for your patience!


	9. Chapter 9

Just a warning here: a character uses the word "retard". It's not a word I condone, but it's one I have heard people like the character use freely so I included it even though it is really offensive.

* * *

Water closed over Will's head, shocking in its intense cold. He barely refrained from gasping in reaction, and then the current caught him and rolled him over, bowling him through the water in a loose tumble. It filled his nose and ears and weighted his clothing, sweeping him deeper as it dragged him downstream. Distantly he felt the bump of a rock under one knee, against one shoulder, and he opened his eyes but all he could see was a confused ferment of grey-greenness.

_Cold water. How do I always end up in cold water?_

Somehow he still held the gun, clenched in one numbed hand. He drew his arm in, curling it to his chest, and forced himself to relax. The water rolled him over once more but this time he felt the toes of his boots bump over slippery rubble. He pushed against it and his head broke surface, long enough to suck in a huge whoop of air. The current whirled him around and drove him back-first into another rock. The breath left his lungs in a startled cough; he flailed his free hand out, and it slapped the algae'd surface.

An eddy at the base of the rock whirled him, fingers tearing away before he could halt his impetus. The current picked him up again and sluiced him down a narrow rapids; he had a brief second to inhale and clamp his mouth shut and then he was plunged into the whitewater.

His boots were dragging again- the water wasn't terribly deep, just fast, with a strong current. Will jammed the toe of his left boot into the streambed; it trailed like an anchor along the smooth slabs of stone that lined the rapids and he was able to orient himself upright and get his head above the surface. He blinked water from his streaming eyes, snorted it from his clogged nose. Pressure from the water behind him shoved him down a short, steep incline and then the stream dropped out from under him. Will managed to twist as he shot over the precipice.

_Like cannonballing off a waterpark slide. Was not really missing that experience from my summer vacation._

He landed with a _'smack'_ on his back in a deep carved-out pool beneath the falls. The downdraft of water pulled him under briefly, but he relaxed again, holding his breath while the seething current pushed him outward and upward. His face broke water and he floated almost peacefully for a moment, his waterlogged pants and boots sinking his lower body so he was nearly upright as he slowed to a gentle drift.

And he still had the gun.

He shoved it beneath his belt buckle and yeah, that was a _really bad idea_ but he kind of needed both hands right now, to tread water so he didn't sink further and to propel himself to shore.

The bank was all loose dirt and long grass instead of sharp rocks, but his arms didn't have the strength to lift him onto it, so Will moved along it hand-over-hand until his bootsoles scraped bottom. The pool got shallower the farther he moved from the falls; finally he was able to get solid ground beneath him and slog heavily out onto dry land. More loose, sandy dirt and long grass, gone to seed; it made a cushioned landing pad when he collapsed onto it. His muscles burned from his struggles and his chest heaved and he coughed wetly into the dirt.

Water, much of it pink-tinged, streamed off him. A fat drop fell from his hair and slid in an icy trail down the back of his neck, down beneath his collar, and he shivered. The shiver didn't stop- it turned into a full-body shudder, and suddenly he was shaking so hard he was nearly vibrating. Thin morning sunshine had filled the bowl of the floodplain surrounding the creek but it did nothing to alleviate the bone-chilling cold wracking him. He curled his arms and legs in tightly and hunched over.

The gun nudged in an uncomfortably vulnerable place and Will groaned and forced himself to uncurl, pulling it back out of his waistband and setting it carefully aside. He needed to get out of the wet clothes before hypothermia set in; his body temperature, already unstable, was plunging rapidly. He straightened arms that trembled on the point of collapse and pushed to sit up. He coughed again and shook his head sharply, jarring the last of the water out of his ears. The shock of plunging beneath cold water had knocked the lethargy from him, but already he could feel the clearheadedness fading.

_Need to get warm._

The pack was gone, lost somewhere upstream, or he would have dug the matches out of the first aid kit and risked a fire. Every minute he spent with wet clothing plastered to his body meant more heat being leached from him; his only chance was to get his clothes off and try to dry them out. The sun was rising and it should warm up soon; he just had to hang on until it did. He bent his right knee, gritting his teeth and dragging his boot within reach. Thick-fingered, he started picking at the knotted laces, teasing at them with blunt nails.

The tightness of the knots and the shaking in his hands nearly defeated him. He could feel faint warmth on his shoulders as the sun crept higher, so he paused in his efforts and peeled the thermal shirt up and over his head. The waffle-weave cotton was thick, and heavy with cold water; he leaned away and wrung it out, the muscles in his arms and wrists knotting as he twisted the cloth tight. Gooseflesh chased up and down his bare skin and he clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from rattling together. He shook out the shirt and scrubbed it over his dripping hair and down his arms and chest, wrung it out again, and spread it over a patch of grass.

The knots in his laces finally gave way and Will pulled off the boots, squelching and weighted with water, dumped them upside down, and peeled off his sodden socks. He didn't bother trying to get to his feet to remove his pants, just leaned back and shoved them over his hips and down his legs. More waves of gooseflesh covered him as the morning air struck his bare legs. Still shivering, he squeezed out the heavy canvas as best he could and then flung the pants out onto a sunny section of grass next to the shirt. He fell back onto the grass, panting.

He pressed his arms tight to his sides but he still shook hard enough that his muscles began to cramp, so he crossed them over his damp chest and squeezed, bowed his back forward and pressed his rattling knees together. Minutes ticked by as he waited for the sun to rise higher, the air to warm, the moisture to evaporate.

Someone was eventually going to find the dead guard laid out in the road; he, and the ATV crumpled into the bridge, were hard to miss. If Will was lucky- very, very lucky- the finder would be a random passerby driving the back roads who would call the police.

More likely it would be Blonde Ponytail or another of the Coordinator's men.

He sat up in careful increments, his joints creaking, and hitched around to peer back upstream. He wasn't sure how far downstream he'd been swept, but far enough that the bridge was no longer in sight. He'd have a little time before anyone came after him- they wouldn't immediately know he'd fallen in the damned stream, they might assume he'd continued on down the road after shooting the guard.

Still, he should prepare for the worst.

Will tilted onto his left hip and inched up the ripped leg of his shorts. What was left of the bandages had sagged to a sodden lump halfway down his thigh, and the bullet wound, washed of caked blood, was red and inflamed. He skimmed his fingers along it gingerly and sucked in a sharp gasp when even that light touch set off a lightning bolt along his nerves. He had to close his eyes until the scalding pain died back to a dull throb once more.

_Not good. Oh, that's not good._

The waterways up in these hills might look pristine, but Will knew there could be all sorts of impurities left by animals, birds, and decaying carcasses of both, finding their way into the runoff that fed the streams. The wound already looked infected and he'd probably just made it worse by swimming in a potentially contaminated pool. He started unknotting the makeshift bandaging; there wasn't anything he could do about it now, but he'd rinse out the cloth, let it dry, and re-wrap it for whatever scant protection it offered.

Even the few steps to the water's edge and back again left him exhausted, but as he dropped to the grass beside his strewn clothing, he did feel marginally warmer. He rubbed his hands roughly up and down his arms and opened and closed his fists to get feeling back into them. They weren't trembling quite as hard, so he picked up his gun.

Most of the water had drained from it, but he ejected the clip and wiped everything down as best he could with hands he kept patting dry on the grass. He wasn't sure how he'd held onto the gun through his sudden plunge into freezing water- desperation, maybe?- but he had, and Glocks still worked when wet. The hunters were wearing him down, though. He was tired, hungry, hurting... he'd sworn to keep fighting, but his determination was eroding, like the cliff he'd brought down on the tracking hunter, like the edges of all the creeks he'd crossed in all the miles he'd hiked...

Will jerked his head up. He was drifting again. The sunshine actually had some heat to it now and he'd been drifting as it soaked into his chilled skin. He made himself scan the area for hostiles, but all was still, quiet except for the tumult of the falls.

And that was a problem in itself. If anyone came through the woods, he wouldn't hear them over the rushing water. He needed to move out of the open.

Below the pool, the bank of the stream flattened out into a broad spill of water-smoothed cobbles where years of spring flooding had washed away the dirt and grass. Lower still was a pile of flat shale slabs, lifted from the streambed by the force of floodwaters, and dropped when the watercourse curved and slowed as it re-entered the forest. Will picked his way, barefoot and unsteady, across the rounded river stones to the pile. The slabs lay tumbled together in crazy angles, forming a natural blind along the stream bank. He laid one hand on the rocks and found them already warming in the sunshine.

A long, dead branch lay in the wrack line on the shore; Will hobbled over and dragged it back to the rocks and poked one end down into the crevices, rattling it around noisily. A wolf spider, disconcertingly large but harmless, skittered out of a chink between two slabs and away across the cobbles. Will leaned his uninjured hip up against one rock and rattled the stick deeper into the pile.

No snakes emerged, which had been his main concern. He tossed aside the branch- it was too long and too thin to use as a crutch- and limped back to gather up his belongings. Walking around in nothing but his still-damp shorts was making him twitchy, but the armful of clothing he held was still too unpleasantly clammy to put on again. He spread everything out on the back side of the rocks, where they could soak up the sunshine and reflected heat from the stone, and then lowered himself carefully to the ground. His head was pounding and there was an ache between his shoulderblades from the intensity of his shivering. The warm rock at his bare back felt blissful. Will turned his head in the direction of upstream, placed the gun on the ground with his hand resting lightly on top of it, and closed his eyes.

* * *

There were half a dozen guest rooms on the second floor, each with its own en suite bathroom and each empty of people. Three of them contained evidence someone had occupied them earlier- a travel bag at the foot of one bed, a toiletry case on a bathroom counter, a hard-sided rifle case propped behind a door. Benji made note of them to check later and continued down the hall on high alert, rolling his steps so his footfalls would be silent. Jane shadowed him like a wraith, slipping in and out in his wake as she covered him, gun extended in a two-handed grip.

The hall took a left-hand turn, and he paused, waiting for Jane to catch up before ducking around the corner. Only two doors opened off this shorter corridor; one led to a bedroom, the other to a sort of studio, with a drafting table, a shelf full of colored pencils and markers, and a large printer connected to a computer on a wide table. Graph paper and gridded drawings were tacked to corkboards, and sectioned drawers held a rainbow of embroidery floss.

"Dunn, status?" Ethan's voice came over their comms.

Benji ducked his head into his shoulder to muffle his voice and muttered, "Hang on," into his comm. Both rooms were empty, and the hall deadended without any additional exits. He glanced at Jane, raised his eyebrows, and mouthed, _Where did they go?;_ Jane shrugged and circled her finger, indicating _Check again. _"Cover me?" he said out of the corner of his mouth, and when Jane nodded, holstered his gun and pulled a scanner off the back of his belt and flicked it on.

Infrared trace, the faintest heat signatures left by the friction of footsteps on flooring, showed on the small square screen as ghostly blue images. His and Jane's footprints were most visible, zigzagging down the hall and entering the doorways, but beneath them was a third pair, paler and fading at the edges. This trail led down the short hall and into the bedroom, and then across the carpet to a spacious walk-in closet that Benji was sure was larger than his sitting room at home. They stopped at the back end of the closet, screened by a number of zippered garment bags that hung from a heavy rod. Benji could see that no feet peeked from beneath the bags, nor were they sturdy enough to hold a person. He turned sideways so Jane had a clear shot and whipped the bags aside.

Behind them was a wall, smooth and blank except for a keyed lock to the far left, about chest-high.

Jane raised her gun to high ready position. "Ohhh, we've got a safe room."

"Yup." Benji was running the scanner around the periphery. "Here's the seam. Ethan, what's _your_ status?"

"DiSabatino has nothing more to say; he's secured. What do you need?"

"I believe we're directly above you in a bedroom with a safe room built into the back- west- wall. Can you check to see if it exits to the lower levels? If not, we may have the daughter trapped."

"Are you good here?" Jane asked him. "I'll check the third floor."

Minutes later, the house was secured and the team met at the door to the bedroom. "Third floor's clear," Jane reported. "A master suite, and a covered porch, one set of stairs to the ground. No attic. No more safe rooms."

"There was heat residue on the lock here," Benji said, "and without any escape hatches on the upper or lower levels, whoever's in the room is effectively trapped. Probably the daughter- this seems to be her bedroom. Until I get a plasma cutter or a skilled negotiator in here, she's not going anywhere."

"Good." Grimly Ethan held out his hand, a wristwatch laid across his palm. "Brandt's. It was in a display cube in DiSabatino's desk."

"You think he's telling the truth about Will being out in the mountains?"

Tight-lipped, Jane raised her weapon again. "I say we question the kid in the kitchen. He was crying when I left him."

Ethan nodded, pocketing Will's watch. "Dunn, get your equipment from the car and set up communications in here where you can keep the daughter contained. Carter, see what the kid knows. I'll join you when Dunn gets back."

The boy Jane had left zip-tied to the base of the kitchen island was no longer crying, but he was red-eyed and shaking and the shoulder of his shirt was wet where he'd been swiping tears and snot. No, he hadn't seen "the prey", but he knew his boss, cousin of his imprisoned father, was beyond furious because he'd gotten past the fence. No one had ever done that before. Yes, his boss had people out looking for him- his two personal guards, whose quads he, the boy, had kept fueled up through the long night of searching. Yes, they had guns; yes, they had probably killed before, but he didn't ask about things like that. Oh, and one of the clients was still out there searching; she had a gun, too. The other two were dead. His boss had told him to wait to collect the bodies until morning.

Ethan came out of the office with a handful of printouts. "Dunn cracked DiSabtino's records from upstairs so we'll know what we're dealing with." He held one page in front of the boy's face. "You said "she"- is this the one out searching the woods?"

The boy sniffed and bent to swipe his nose across his shoulder and nodded. "Yeah. Sam said the other two- the guys- are dead."

Ethan handed the printout to Jane. "Dunn's digging up more background on her now, but the short version is- Kay Davison, CEO of the privately-owned Scepter Biologic. Ties to both Central Africa and South America, mining, specialty pharmaceutical farming, and biological agents development. Highly trained in recreational shooting and money to burn." He turned back to the boy, giving him the full force of his cold gaze. "You said there are armed guards as well?"

The boy sniffed again. "Christophe and Matt. They have the quads. All I'm s'posed to do is gas 'em up."

"How do they communicate?"

"Huh?"

"Are they keeping in touch with anyone here in the house?" Jane interjected.

"Oh!" The boy sniffed and then gulped. "Yeah. Radios. They call me when they need me to meet 'em at the gate with more gas."

Jane glanced around the kitchen. "Where's your radio now?"

"Ellie took it. She grabbed it from me when she heard the car on the drive."

"Ellie?"

"DiSabatino's daughter," Ethan said with a grimace. "So that means the guards know we're here." He bent over the boy, who flinched back against the island. "Does Davison have a radio?"

"N-no."

"Where did my agent get past the fence?"

"Huh? Agent? What?"

"The _prey_," Jane spit, the word bitter in her mouth. "Where was the prey when he escaped?"

"Oh." He sniffed again- the tic was getting annoying. "Sam said the south boundary, all the way at the bottom of the property."

Ethan tapped his comm. "Dunn, can you get us a detailed map? Overview of the immediate area, concentrating on south of the house."

"Coming up," Benji replied from upstairs. "You want it on your phones?"

"Yes." Ethan glanced at Jane. "We need to stash this one and DiSabatino."

"There's a walk-in freezer beside the garage door. I'll raise the temp above freezing and lock them both in."

* * *

They left Benji ensconced in Elizabeth White's bedroom, guarding the door to the safe room, trying to gather outside resources while running hacks on DiSabatino's records in the background. Ethan and Jane drove back down the long lane to the perimeter gate, and popped the SUV's hatch to gear up.

Search and rescue would not, Benji reported over the comm, risk a search and rescue as long as armed hostiles were on the loose. "They'll assemble and stand by at the rescue building in town," he said, "but they won't enter the woods until it's confirmed safe."

"We're on our own," Ethan said grimly, jamming another gun into his belt and tightening his Kevlar vest. "The road we came in on continues south- you take that direction. I'll head down the fenceline, find where Brandt crossed. I'll see if I can intercept Davison."

"Can we get a chopper with thermal imaging to fly over?" Jane asked. She shrugged a survival pack onto her back.

"Negative," Benji replied. "State police have the closest equipment, and they won't fly until the threat of gunfire has been neutralized. I'm trying to get an IMF bird but they're having difficulty locating a combat-rated pilot who is currently within two timezones of ours."

"Okay." Jane tucked extra ammo clips into the pockets on her sleeves. "We'll do it on foot then."

Ethan nodded and faced down the fenceline. "Let's find him."

The grass on both sides of the fence had been mowed short, making passage easy. Ethan settled into a steady, ground-eating jog, down the slope toward the lower perimeter. Stones rolled beneath his boots occasionally, but he pounded on, eyes on alert for any sign of hostiles, though he expected they were long gone from the property, chasing Brandt through the interminable forest. The sun climbed higher over his left shoulder, making the coils of razor wire topping the fence glitter in a way that was almost beautiful.

The fence finally made a right-angle turn, and Ethan knew he'd reached the south boundary. He picked up his pace as he rounded the corner, and further along he saw it- the smooth, featureless expanse of chainlink was broken. A swath of it was twisted; when he reached it, barely out of breath, he saw an L-shaped cut had been made in the links, up one support post and then horizontally about five feet across. A wide section was then bent back, large enough that an all-terrain vehicle could fit through.

A square, grey box attached to the fence hung open- the inside of it looked singed, and when Ethan bent over it, the bitter scent of scorched wiring met his nostrils.

_Good job, Brandt. I know this is your work._

The jacket draped over the top of the fence, its camouflage coloring partially obscured by black charring, was also Brandt's work. Ethan tapped his comm. "I found the egress point. If he didn't run up the fenceline, he headed into deep woods."

"Hang on, I'm marking your position by GPS," Benji said. The map on Ethan's phone updated, a blinking dot indicating his position relative to the rest of the property. "You're actually not all that far from Sky Manor Road as the crow flies."

"Brandt wouldn't have known that. He could have headed any direction." Ethan climbed through the gap in the fence and ranged back and forth, scanning the ground. A Kevlar vest, strapped into a tight bundle, lay on the ground below the smoldered jacket. The ground was slightly churned, grass torn up by the roots, and he turned and faced the treeline opposite and then began pacing toward it. Thick mountain laurels ranged across the top of a steeper slope; Ethan saw a small gap between them to his left and ducked into it.

A trail of scuffed-up leaves and debris led downwards, and Ethan followed it, his gut clenching uneasily. Brandt had been moving _fast_, too fast for caution or stealth. He'd abandoned his body armor, his boots had left a clear trail...

In the dim, green light, a pale spot in the brush fairly glowed. Ethan crouched and touched his fingers to a gouge exposing fresh wood on the root of a hemlock tree. He raised his head to scan ahead for more signs and his eyes were drawn to the tree's trunk, to dark smudges marring the grey, lichened bark. He ran his hand down the trunk to the ground, brushing across the thick layer of dead needles beneath the tree.

His stomach dropped and he touched his comm.

"I found blood. Brandt might be walking wounded."

There was a pause before Jane's voice reached him, tight and clipped. "How much blood?"

"Drops, not a pool. I'll check the vicinity, but I'm assuming he's still mobile."

"Acknowledged."

* * *

"You have to come get me out! I only saw three of them, but you have to come get me before more show up. Dad's... I don't know where Dad is, but you can handle three. I can't leave the room until you get rid of them!"

The Boss's daughter sounded frantic, and Matt Belardo didn't blame her- everything was going straight into the shitter. He made sure she was done squawking and clicked his radio to respond. "Three against one?" He didn't mention the client he had picked up before sunrise, perched on the ATV seat behind him with her chin practically resting on his shoulder, a strange dreamy smile on her face. "I don't think so."

There was a pause before Ellie White spoke again, and then the words were dragged out between clenched teeth. "I have access to millions, millions, Matt, but only if you get me out of this room. Kill three people and you can have half."

Belardo turned his head enough to peek from the corner of his eye at the client. Slowly she shook her head. "Let her wait. The hunt comes first."

"The two of us could take out three cops or whatever they are. We get Ellie to transfer the money to us and then we come back and get the prey."

"I'll have lost the trail by then. He's close, I can feel it." She straightened on the seat, that weird little smile playing around her lips as she stared out into the trees. "We run him down, I get my trophy, then we'll head back to the Lodge and clean out the vermin."

"Matt, do you copy? Matt, listen to me, I'm trapped, Christophe isn't answering, you're the only one who can help me! I can pay you so much money if you just come get me out!"

He licked his lips, rubbing his palm on the handlebar of the ATV. The Boss paid well, sure... but millions? He was a city boy, born and raised on busy streets, always something going down, lights and action and fun. Millions would buy him a place far away from the strange, haunting quiet of these woods, empty except for fleeting shadows and weird noises at night. Grecco said he was a retard for believing it, that he'd taken too many hits to the head, but Bigfoot lived in woods like this and Bigfoot scared the shit out of him. He rubbed his hand harder on the rubberized grip. Millions would mean he'd never have to spend another night like last night, bouncing through the pitch darkness with shadows looming along the edges of the headlights and the snap of twigs making him nearly piss himself a dozen times over.

Belardo turned to the client, his lips parting.

"No," she said flatly. "The prey first. I _want_ him. I want him and I'll have him." The radio squawked again and Davison made an impatient gesture. "Stall her. Tell her you're on your way, that'll shut her up until we track the quarry and bring him down."

So Belardo did. He soothed the Boss's daughter with promises that he was on his way back, that he would shoot her attackers and let her out of the safe room and then she would give him money, lots and lots of money. And then he thumbed off the radio and clipped it back onto his belt and half-turned to the woman at his back.

"That way," Davison said, pointing through the trees to the road just beyond them. "Head along the road."

"Chris is searching the road," Belardo objected.

"And Chris hasn't answered for an hour," she retorted. "I think that means Chris has run into a little trouble, and I think that trouble might be my prey. Head along the road."

Belardo kicked the ATV into motion and slewed out of the trees onto smooth pavement. Actually, this wasn't bad- they were heading north, back toward the Lodge. When they got closer, he'd try again to convince this blonde looney to go back and deal with whoever was tearing through the Lodge. He'd tell her she had three more targets she could eliminate, targets she would get paid for, instead of her paying to shoot at them. She had a screw loose for sure, but put that way, Belardo was sure she would go for it.

They buzzed along the road, wind whipping past their faces, Davison's arm curled lightly around his waist. They were making good time now that they weren't dodging trees and plowing through brush. Belardo started to feel almost happy. He had a plan. It was a good one.

Ahead was a wide spot on the roadside, a pull-over at the foot of a steep section, for when winter weather made the narrow road treacherous. Davison tapped hard on his shoulder. "Pull over!" she yelled into his ear.

* * *

Jane continued down the two-lane road cutting through the hilly forest. A tall rocky cliff rose on one side and dropped away in a steep slope on the other. She saw no signs that anyone had passed recently- no marks in the narrow, almost non-existent shoulders, no broken brush along the roadside.

No blood spatter.

A road sign gleamed in the bright morning sun ahead, indicating a curve in the road. Jane slowed so she could round it quietly. She heard no trace of either of the ATVs that had been sent after Will, but she turned sideways, gun raised, to ease around the curve.

She saw a bridge ahead, a small stone structure crossing a narrow mountain stream. But it wasn't the bridge that drew her eyes, it was the roadway before it, where something dark and bulky lay tumbled.

Jane's mouth went dry. "I... have a body," she forced herself to say, even as she broke into a hard sprint. She kept her head up, scanning for danger, but nothing moved in the surrounding forest. She ducked low and did another sweep as she reached the body, and her eyes took in a tangle of wreckage butted up against the bridge and then flicked back and fixed on the body. Her hand went out and grasped a shoulder, heavy with the weight of death, and pushed.

The body rolled heavily and settled on its back and Jane's breath punched out of her chest in a gust. Black, tightly curled hair, heavy jaw, drooping lids over slitted, dark brown eyes.

A neat, black hole punched in the left temple.

"It's not him!" she gasped. She fell back onto her seat, heart pounding. "It's not Will." A high noise of relief came over the comm and she swallowed. "This one's been shot, though."

"Scan his face over to me," Benji said, the hint of a tremor in his voice, and when Jane had complied, said, "That's Christophe Grecco, one of DiSabatino's personal guards."

"Yeah, there's a crashed ATV next to a bridge," Jane said, circling the vehicle in question. "Body's fairly fresh; Brandt was here within the past few hours." She leaned over the bridge, searching for signs of her missing teammate, and her breath caught. "I see something!"

She was down the bridge abutment in a flash, leaping nimbly from rock to rock, Ethan's voice sharp and slightly out of breath in her ear, "What is it? What did you find?"

She crouched at the streamside and picked up the objects she'd spotted from above. "A backpack," she answered, unzipping it. "And a water bottle. Not a disposable one, the kind for hiking. It's empty. The pack is full of empty food wrappers and not much else."

"Where are you?" Ethan demanded, and "Gimme a sec, I'll GPS your position," Benji broke in.

"Beside a stream," Jane answered anyway. She rose to her feet and shaded her eyes, turning in a slow circle to survey the area. "Will must have..."

A gunshot cracked through the air, cutting off her words.

* * *

"Why are we stopping?" Belardo asked, a slight whine in his voice. He braced his feet on the ground, engine idling. He thought he'd have a better chance of talking the client into returning to the Lodge if they were closer to its lane, and the delay annoyed him.

"There's a river down there," Davison answered, pointing off to the right. The ground dropped sharply on that side of the road, and between the treetops was a gleam of water.

"Yeah, that's... I dunno, Something Creek," Belardo said. "There's a bridge that crosses it a few miles up the road."

"A few miles..." Davison swung her leg over the seat and stepped out into the road, turning from one side to the other, eyeing the distant stream on the right and the hilly terrain to the left. "And where's the Lodge property?"

"Like, a few miles up that way." He waved vaguely up the road and to the left. "Did you want to go there?" he asked hopefully.

Davison's eyes took on a feral gleam. "He followed the road until he crossed paths with Grecco," she said softly. "He didn't _keep_ following the road, or we would have cut him off from below. So now he's following the creek."

"Yeah, okay, great." Belardo shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he straddled the quad. "He's not gonna make good time in the woods. We can go up and take care of Ellie, get our money, and swing back and run him down along the creek."

Davison's voice was almost a croon. "I'm not losing him again," she said, and with a soft rasping sound, she drew a pistol from her thigh holster, pressed the muzzle to the back of Belardo's head, and fired.

The gunshot rolled away across the river valley. Davison watched Belardo's body jerk and slump forward onto the handlebars, arms dangling. She reached under his chest and switched off the engine.

She stood looking out over the creek valley for a moment. The ATV was handy, but too noisy. Stealth was needed, and agility, to follow the winding water through the woods. She holstered her pistol and grasped the guard's shoulders, heaving him off the vehicle and into the dirt. Seizing him under the arms, she dragged the body across the road and rolled it under the guardrail running along the roadside. A hard kick sent it tumbling limply down the steep slope into the brush below.

Ferns and laurels covered the slope above the left side of the road; Davison moved the ATV deep enough into them that it was no longer visible from the road. She pocketed the key, patted the rifle slung across her back, and leapt lightly back down to the road.

She would need an escape vehicle after she took her prize- it sounded like the Lodge's security had been breached. No matter- she had contingency plans in place for just such an occurrence.

But first, she was going to make a killing.

* * *

The gunshot yanked Will out of a fitful sleep. The gnawing hurt in his leg had kept him from falling deeply asleep, but he managed to doze off for moments at a time before snapping awake once more. The gunfire sent a sluggish spike of adrenaline through him and his head shot up from where his chin rested on his chest. He twisted, trying to place where the sound had come from.

The road. Lower, farther from where he thought the bridge was. He ran his tongue over dry lips and scrubbed a hand down his face, over aching eyes and scruffy cheeks and chin.

_Someone's coming. Move._

He reached overhead and groped for his clothing. The socks were dry, and so was the shirt. He pulled both on with effort and then threaded the pants over his feet. The heavy canvas was still damp, especially at the waist where the belt was looped, but they were no longer dripping and he was no longer freezing. In fact, it felt like a fire had kindled beneath his skin while he rested. Breathing in staccato gasps, he inched the pants up his legs, biting down on a yelp as he arched to get them around his waist. He cinched the belt tight and reached for his boots.

_Boom boom boom boom boom._ The pounding rhythm was back with a vengeance. Will stumbled forward, bent low not out of furtiveness but because the hot pain in his hip had wrapped his spine and wouldn't let him straighten. He fixed his gaze on a tree ahead of him and made his feet march toward it and when his hand fell to its trunk, he found another and repeated the process.

He was deep in the woods before he remembered the makeshift bandages, left spread across the sunny rocks to dry.

_Not doing any good anyway. Still have the gun, that's all you need now._

He moved deeper into the woods, blackflies stinging at the corners of his eyes. Shade closed over him, cool enough to make him shiver, and then he was climbing. He pushed the gun into his belt and on hands and knees worked his way upward. At the top he paused, thumped over onto his seat, and looked around. A narrow valley was behind him, following the course of the stream. Behind that was a ridge, delineated by a dip in the treetops. That was the path of the road, Will realized, and he tracked it with his eyes as it curved off to the south. If he followed the ridge he was on also toward the south, he would eventually intersect with the road once more and could find his way along it to the theoretical town he believed waited below.

_Okay, I'll do that. Nothing better to do._

He hauled himself to his feet and as he did he caught a flicker of motion between the trees. A flicker, and then another, and...

She was coming down the steep hillside beside the road, her blonde ponytail swishing in the sunlight. She hadn't seen him yet, but somehow she had found him- she seemed to have a sixth sense for where he was, because her route led directly toward him. She would catch up to him before long. Will touched the gun at his waist.

And he would be waiting for her.

* * *

I think I have one more chapter to go, followed by an epilogue, where Will finally gets a little comfort and pampering.

Poor Will. It's been a long time coming.


	10. Chapter 10

Ethan was moving before the echoes of the gunshot had even faded, ducking through the trees at a dead run. "Carter, report!"

"I'm good. The shot came from south of my position."

"I'm inbound." He hurdled a narrow dry creek bed, boots thudding deep on the far side. "Dunn, can we get a sat view?"

"I can put one on your screens, but it won't be real-time. Too rural out here for a live feed."

"Never mind then." Ethan's legs strained, propelling him up a slope beyond the creek.

When no further gunshots followed the first, Jane rose to one knee from her flattened position behind the bridge abutment. She brought up the map on her phone's screen- road, stream, bridge, her current location, all sketched in lines and dots. The blue of the stream bisected the red road-line at the bridge and traced off into a featureless area before curving back in a wide arc to roughly parallel the road. Both then led down out of the hills toward the nearest small town at the foot of the river valley.

_Will wouldn't know that_, Jane thought, unconsciously echoing Ethan's earlier words. But he would know that following a river often led out of wilderness, that farms and towns were often built along their banks.

Ethan's dot was in a featureless area of woods between her position and the grey line indicating DiSabatino's fence, ticking slowly east toward the road. If she followed the stream, the two of them would eventually meet, somewhere near where the gunshot had been fired.

Somewhere along Will's possible route.

Decision made, Jane tucked away her phone. "I think Will may have been following the river. I'm heading that way."

She started downstream, leaping from rock to rock along the bank. She looked for more signs Will may have preceded her, but saw no overturned stones nor footprints in the softer patches. Nor, thankfully, any blood droplets.

Ethan's voice, now slightly breathless, came over the comm. "_Lot_ of territory to cover- we could really use a helicopter with thermal, Dunn."

"State police dispatcher is telling me that in order to differentiate between the signatures of deer and bears in the area and humans, they'd have to fly low enough that they'd be in range of the rifles the hostiles have been confirmed to be carrying. Flying above range won't give the detail needed. IMF has found us a pilot, but he's in Albuquerque. They're putting him on a jet now."

A grunt exploded softly in Jane's ear as Ethan landed heavily somewhere. "Try Fort Indiantown Gap Army base. See if they have a National Guard unit who can help us out," he said when he'd recovered his breath.

"On it."

The stream narrowed, rushing swiftly through a gap in the rocky banks; Jane slowed so she could pick her way over them without losing her footing. The water's roar filled her head, growing louder as she moved further downstream so that she almost missed Ethan's sharp exclamation. "What? Ethan?"

"I think I just tripped over the recipient of that gunshot." Ethan grunted with effort, and Jane paused, hand cupped over her comm to block the ambient noise. "Not Brandt. You both copy? It's not Brandt. Male, thirties, wearing tac gear. Sending you a picture now, Dunn." He paused. "Shot at point-blank range in the back of the head."

"That's DiSabatino's second guard," Benji confirmed. "Name's Belardo, was a part-time boxer, full-time petty criminal and wheelman for the Mannino family."

"Carter, stay sharp. I don't think Brandt took this one out- he's still wearing his rifle and I just spotted his ATV up in the brush, and Brandt could have utilized both."

Jane took a long look around the surrounding hills. "Davison?"

"Has to be. And she's not that far ahead of me. I'm going to check the area."

The rapids spilled over a short falls, emptying into a deep pool below. Jane worked her way backwards down the cliff face, easing hand-over-hand down the crumbling slabs and avoiding the edges slicked by moisture and moss. The embankment at the bottom was overgrown with brush and saplings and she hopped down the last few feet to ground that was choked with bracken.

Will would have had a hard time hiking through it, especially if he were injured. She looked across the stream. The bank there was scoured flat and bare by years of spring floods, leaving a broad, rocky shore before the woods closed in again. Easier to walk there while still providing quick access to cover. Below the pool the bottom of the stream rose to scarcely knee-deep, and Jane stepped down into the water, feeling its cold bite through her boots. She waded across and climbed out, scanning for tracks.

A heap of tall, flat stones deposited on the shoreline by some long-ago flood offered up the first real sign Will had actually passed that way. "I found cloth," Jane reported, and then amended, as she snatched up the pieces from the sun-drenched rocks, "Clothing. A shirt, socks, what looks like a long piece of bandaging." She added grimly, "They're stained- completely blood-stained- and it looks like Will tried to rinse them out. I don't know why he didn't pick them up when he moved on."

"In a hurry and maybe not thinking clearly," Ethan said between short huffs of breath. "I've gone several miles down the road and I don't see anyone- I'm turning back."

"There's a hill ahead of my position," Jane said, turning in a slow circle, the ruined shirt dangling from one hand. "If I don't see him from the top, I can try calling for him."

"Don't!" Ethan said sharply. "Davison's not following the road that I can see; she must have gone back into the woods. Don't draw her to you."

Jane lifted the shirt, a frown gathering between her eyes. The front of it had be reduced to narrow ribbons, as if some fashion-forward teen had taken a razor blade to it. Its original olive-drab color was almost completely obscured by varying shades of dark rust-brown. Even rinsed out, the stains had soaked deeply into the fibers. "If we don't find Will soon- and I mean _soon_- we're going to have to risk the noise. There's a _lot_ of blood on this shirt."

"If we take out Davison, we can get Search and Rescue..." Ethan broke off with a wheeze. "... in to help," he finished. "I'm trying to locate her now from up a tree. Carter, you keep tracking Brandt. Dunn, get us everyone you can muster, holding on standby if they won't engage."

There was no sign of Will from the hilltop, but the heavy tree cover prevented Jane from seeing too deeply into the forest. She stood listening atop the ridge, straining all her senses for any sign that someone was moving through the brush ahead of her.

Nothing. The only motion was in the leaves lifted by a cooling breeze; the only sound was the muted chatter of birds and the faint rush of the falls in the distance. She turned to orient on them, then swung slowly back, following the path of the stream with her eyes. A gap in the treetops revealed where the water flowed after it disappeared in the forest; a second gap, off to the west and slightly higher, was the road. The gaps ran roughly adjacent down into valley. Jane's gut feeling told her that was the direction Will would have headed. Gut feelings and instinct had served her well in the past, not always, but often enough that she trusted it now.

She moved off, sticking to the high ground for a better vantage point. Gnats swarmed up to sting at the corners of her eyes and she swerved into deeper shade; when she broke through a screen of brush, the hills in the distance were hazed by the rising heat and humidity. Jane swiped her arm across her face and ran her hand around the neck of her t-shirt and vest, wiping off sweat.

The trees thinned and the terrain grew rocky. A stony slope plunged down toward the stream, bare except for wiry grass and a few scattered pines. Knowing she would be all-too-visible on the open hillside, Jane drew back into a thicker stand of pines and followed the ridgeline from within their cover. It was hushed beneath their dense needles, sounds muffled and the breeze stilled by closely-spaced branches. Even her footfalls were deadened by the thick carpet of shed needles.

A shiver chased down Jane's back, icy beneath the sweat pooling along the dip of her spine. She stopped; the silence was almost eerie, smothering, and the back of her neck prickled. She eased sideways to put her back to the nearest tree and raised her gun.

Nothing moved. She touched a finger to her comm to switch it off and scanned in a long, slow arc, left, along the ground and foot of the trees, and then right, across the upper branches. Even in the full daylight it was dim in the pine grove, shadows pooling between their scaly trunks and under their deep branches. Far away, a mourning dove called, a low, melancholy croon that hung in the stifling air.

Jane wasn't superstitious, but another shiver skittered down her back at the mournful tone. She shook off a sudden clench of dread and slid down the trunk to her haunches, ducking low around the tree. Branches brushed her back with a soft sibilant; she gained the next tree and paused to strain for the slightest sound.

Only the whisper of fresh needles against her vest, the minute crunch of dry needles beneath her feet. A persistent gnat buzzed in her ear. She rose to a half-crouch and darted to the next tree, then cut to another, working her way down through the pine thicket.

The ground softened under her feet as the incline fell off to a hollow, and the pines gave way to leafy trees again, maple and ash and oak. More sunshine slanted through the leaves and weeds swished softly around Jane's ankles as she advanced cautiously.

And then she stopped and crouched, ghosting her hand across the ground. A line was flattened through the grassy weeds, stems bent and stalks crushed. She tilted her head- she could see where someone had recently passed by, probably with heavy, maybe dragging, steps. She touched her comm active and was immediately assailed with urgent hails- "Carter! Carter, respond!" and Benji, louder, "Jane! Come in, Jane!"

"I'm good," she murmured, so low her lips barely moved. "Think I found a trail. Stand by."

Ahead was a lighter patch of forest, and as she moved towards it she saw it was a small glade, ringed almost completely by young, slender maple trees, their trunks silver in the sunlight filtering softly through the leaves. Another step and the ground yielded; moisture welled around her boot sole. A spring bubbled up near the roots of the farthest tree, with dozens of oblong holes pressed into the mud alongside it. The bright green grass carpeting the clearing was thick, flattened in places and shaped into shallow, rounded hollows.

"Jane?" Benji's voice prodded at her ear.

She'd found a deer rest- a place where a small herd would take refuge during daylight hours, screened in and sheltered from weather and predators alike.

"Stand _by_," she hissed, and stepped sideways to a gap between the trees, the wet ground sucking at her boots.

No deer lingered in the rest, but there was something else visible in the flickering sunlight- a darker shape propped against a tree on the far side of the clearing.

Jane's breath caught in her chest, a sudden sharp inhalation that made her head feel light. "I found- oh god- I found him! Brandt- he's here- "

She jerked forward, ignoring the sudden clamor in her earpiece in favor of reaching her missing teammate; and then she froze, one step past the screen of maple saplings.

He had a gun on her.

It was wavering ever-so-slightly, clamped in filthy hands that shook despite the wrists braced on an up-drawn knee, but Jane had no doubt that even impaired, William Brandt could still acquire and drill his intended target- her.

"Brandt!" she rapped out. He didn't react beyond the gun steadying a fraction, zeroing in on her head. "Agent Brandt!" she tried, and she raised her hands away from her body, fingers spread, pointing her own weapon at the sky.

His eyes looked glazed and weren't tracking her motion. The tendons in his hands tightened and Jane took a swift step back and to the side, spreading her arms wider. "_Will_."

He blinked, a crease furrowing his brows, and she repeated, "Will, it's Jane."

"Jane?"

"Carter. Jane Carter. You're okay now, Will." The gun was still pointed at her, but it wavered again, enough that she thought if he squeezed the trigger now he had a good chance of missing her. She tried to tune out Ethan's increasingly frantic demands- "Carter? What's happening? Carter, report!" and said calmly and clearly, "_Corellia_."

Will's shoulders slumped at the safe-code. His knee toppled sideways, dropping his hands to his lap as if a string holding them aloft had been cut. His throat worked. "Jane. Jesus, what... _How_ did you...?"

"It wasn't easy." She was across the clearing in a flash, tucking her gun at her back and dropping beside him. She took his shoulders in her hands to steady him, still hyperaware of the gun resting on his thigh. She aimed her voice toward her comm. "I've got him. I've got Brandt, he's here, alive."

"Ping her location!" Ethan was saying, but she'd stopped listening. Will was pushing at her shoulder, hard, even as she tried to check him over. She braced him on the tree with one hand while the other moved to the stained, shredded fabric over his belly.

"Let me..."

"Don't..." His voice was a dry rasp, and he coughed. "Don't turn your back. Got at least one on my tail." He shoved at her again. "Don't put your back to the open, Jane."

This time she let herself be turned aside, twisting to one knee with the back of her hips pressed to the trunk. "Okay, okay, easy. Now let me see. You don't look so good." She pulled up his shirt and ran her fingers over the sliced skin of his stomach. The cuts appeared superficial, already scabbed over. They didn't account for the volume of bloodstains on his clothing. "You hit somewhere?"

Will grunted an affirmative. "Got shot in the ass."

Jane had already moved her hands down his body and found the gash torn through the side of his pants. "Lift up."

"_Don't_ turn your back. Swing around."

"I need to see."

"Then move so I've got a clear shot."

She shifted aside and Will licked his lips, squeezing his eyes closed, then open, to focus on the trees over her shoulder. He raised his gun in a clumsy grip with his elbows clamped tight to his ribs. Jane reached over and took his right shoulder and knee and pushed, tipping him up onto his left side. "The bullet wound is on your hip."

Will huffed out a thin laugh. "Yeah, well, 'I got shot on the hip' sounds like I'm embarrassed to say I really took a bullet to the butt." He made a small, choked noise as Jane lowered him back to the ground so she could shrug the pack of supplies off her back. "This way," he continued in a strained voice, "I say right off that I got shot in the ass, everybody says, 'Oh, no, it's not nearly that humiliating- it's just your hip.'" The gun wavered again as Jane seized the edges of the tear in both hands and ripped it wider, inching up the hem of his shorts beneath. "Saves me... being defensive."

It was bad. Will's whole flank was inflamed, the path of the bullet a black-edged furrow sunk in swollen, red-streaked flesh. Jane swallowed, grateful the angle she knelt at prevented Will from seeing her expression.

She turned and dug a small bottle of antiseptic out of the pack, injecting a light tone in her voice. "Very funny, Agent Brandt. You think that'll prevent the 'Hey I hear Brandt is a bad_ass_' jokes?"

"Gonna... try..."

She poised the bottle over the raw gash in his leg. "This'll sting."

"Yeah. Go."

She poured, and winced in sympathy as he jerked, breath hissing sharply between clenched teeth. "Sorry."

"S'okay. Watch... y'r back..."

Will's head had fallen back against the tree, his eyes clamped shut. He'd let the gun drop to his stomach so he could twist up handfuls of the canvas fabric of his pants, and he was breathing in short rasps.

Jane turned on the balls of her feet, scanning the surrounding forest. She spoke into her comm as her eyes kept moving. "Benji?"

"Here. What's Will's status? I can only hear your side."

Jane's gaze fell to the gouge carved through her teammate and her mouth twisted. _Those red streaks..._ "We need a medevac," she said carefully. There was no way Will couldn't hear her, but she tried to keep her voice level. "He's conscious, mostly alert, but in a lot of pain. Gunshot to the upper right thigh- a graze, but a deep one. Significant blood loss. And..." Her voice faltered as she lifted her head.

Will's eyes were open, fixed steadily on hers. "Go on," he told her. "And it's infected, with likely blood poisoning. I tripped coming down the ridge and I got a good look at it when I checked to see if I started bleeding again. I already know the score, Jane."

She nodded mutely and leaned over, laying the backs of her fingers alongside his jaw and then on his forehead, feeling the heat radiating off him.

"Jane? You cut out there."

She cleared her throat. "And... the wound is infected, with onset of blood poisoning. He's running a fever. Get us a medevac, _stat_, Benji."

"I'll try." An undercurrent of worry threaded his voice. "I don't know if I can convince them to fly with Davison still on the loose."

"Lie to them," Jane said flatly. She picked up the antiseptic and turned back to Will. "Deep breath. Ready?"

His jaw knotted. "Go."

This time while he breathed in harsh hisses, she ripped open a field dressing and tucked it between the torn edges of his pants, sealing it over the wound. Will made a small noise in the back of his throat and he bumped his head back, grinding it against the rough bark.

"I know, Will- I'm sorry." Jane found his hand, white-knuckled on a fold of pants, and covered it in a warm squeeze. "I know it hurts, but we'll have you out of here ASAP."

He snorted out another of those thin laughs. "_'Lie to them',_" he repeated her own words back to her. "There are two armed hostiles running amok in these woods with high-powered rifles. EMTs won't fly into that situation."

Jane busied herself with the pack, locating and withdrawing a bottle of water. "Drink this. You're dehydrating fast."

He took a long, deep swallow, sighing gratefully as he lowered the bottle. "Don't change the subject."

"Okay, fine." Jane looked him straight in the eye, noting the glassy sheen still lurking there, the drooping lids, the deepening creases at the corners of his eyes. "There's only one hostile left, a woman, one of the hunters. She shot the other guard- Ethan found the body right before I found you. But until we take her out, no, medevac won't respond."

Will took another deep draught and swiped the back of his wrist over his mouth. "How far from the road are we? I got a little turned around when I fell in a river."

"Benji, where's the road relative to my position?"

"Just under five miles due west as the crow flies. Medevac wants confirmation from someone in the field that all hostiles are neutralized. I've got a state police S.W.A.T. unit inbound, ETA, thirty minutes. They'll spread out in the woods and do a sweep for Davison."

"We can't put civilian pilots at risk," Ethan broke in. "I'm almost to the river, Carter. Give me another fifteen or so minutes and I can cover you, if I don't find Davison first."

Jane turned back to Will. "Five miles. Ethan's on his way, and Benji's working on transport."

Will handed the empty bottle back to Jane. "I can do five miles, easy. Just get me on my feet and point me in the right direction."

"Just get you on your feet? Oh, it's that simple, is..."

The '_crack_' of a rifle shot cut off her next words. Bark sprayed as a bullet skimmed the tree trunk, inches from their heads. They reacted at the same instant, Will lurching forward and planting his hand on Jane's shoulder to shove her down, Jane reaching back to Will's chest and knocking him sideways. They hit the ground together, flattening into the grass.

"Gunfire," Jane spoke urgently into her comm, "Shots fired, we're taking fire..."

Will hitched himself forward on his elbows, leveling his gun. "On our eleven! Jane, get behind the tree..."

"_You_ get behind the tree! You're..." She ducked as another shot tore into the ground just before them, kicking up a spatter of grass fragments. "...wounded!"

Will fired, twice, three times, in rapid succession. "She's in motion. Move, dammit, move, move!"

Jane rolled right, throwing herself behind the nearest tree, her eyes racing over the brush to locate the shooter. From the corner of her eye she saw Will flip behind the tree he'd been propped on and raise his gun again.

"Ten o'clock, behind the rock overhang!" He fired, and Jane saw a pale flash of motion as Davison ducked back.

Jane tossed a quick look from behind the tree- the outcropping of rock and the trees between her and it were preventing her from taking a clear shot. "Ethan, where are you?"

"River! On my way, hang tight!"

"We're pinned down," she informed him, and then heard Will's gun _'click_' on an empty chamber.

He shoved backwards on his belly, just far enough that he could look over his shoulder and meet her eyes. He could see her position- could see she had no shot. There was a soft, throaty chuckle from behind the rock formation and then another swish of pale hair as the hunter straightened and fairly strutted around it.

Will laid his empty Glock at the roots of the tree. "Go right and take her when I move."

"Will, don't!"

"_Go right. and take her. when I move_."

He reached up, a knife suddenly in his hand, and drove it into the tree above his head, drawing his left knee under him and using the handle to hoist himself to his feet. Jane cursed and gathered herself into a coiled crouch as Will wrenched the blade from the tree, measured distance with a glance, and dove to the left between the trees. A gurgle of husky laughter matched his movement.

Jane saw the knife fly, straight as an arrow despite Will's pain and exhaustion. She couldn't take time to admire the beauty of its trajectory- she was flying as well, sprinting to the right to bring Davison into her sights. She heard the knife strike, a sharp sort of '_thunk_', metal on Kevlar, and she heard Davison's delighted crow, "Never give up, never surrender! I always loved..."

And then Jane's hands were snapping up, her gun cupped between them and Davison in her sights. The hunter came striding into the clearing with her rifle cradled lovingly in her hands. The muzzle angled down, honed in on Will where he lay tumbled onto the ground...

Jane fired, three tight, rapid shots- _head, throat, head_.

And Davison went down, snapping back violently and then crumpling, the rifle slipping from her grasp to fall across her body.

"Hostile neutralized," Jane snapped into her comm and she broke into a dead run, sparing only a glance and a kick to the limp body before throwing herself beside Will. "Agent down. Get me a _fucking_ chopper, STAT."

He was breathing, shuddering gasps that shook his body. Jane slid one arm beneath Will's chest and got him by the shoulders, lifting and rolling him to his back. His face was grey, but his eyes fluttered open when she bent over him and called out. "_Will_. Will, come on."

"She dead?"

Jane laid a hand on his chest, over his racing heart. "Yes, she's dead! She was going to _kill_ you."

"Oh, I'm not... complaining. Just... checking." A ghost of his crooked smile traced over his lips and then faded. He dropped one hand over Jane's and patted the back of her hand clumsily. "Don't think... five miles is going to be that easy anymore."

She had already seen that. A flood of red, glistening ruby in the blazing sunshine, soaked Will from waist to knee. She pressed on his chest, lightly but insistently. "Stay here. Do not move."

She crossed the clearing in rapid strides. "Brandt's alive, but barely conscious now. Neither of us is hit, but he's bleeding heavily from the previous gunshot wound. Davison is down- she's dead, and I want a chopper. You hear me, Benji? The threat's neutralized and they can send in EMTs."

"They're going into the air now, ETA, fifteen minutes. I'll keep you posted." Benji paused. "Jane? Is he okay?"

"Not really," she said shortly, scooping up the pack and spinning to retrace her steps.

The field dressing had torn loose when Will fell, and the gash split when he hit the ground. Jane ripped open a second; Will had his hand clamped over his hip, and she nudged it aside to slip the heavy gauze in under his bloodied fingers. "Stay with me. Can you do that, Will? Answer me."

"Sure... thing."

She peeled open another just as Benji hailed her. "Jane?"

"You better have good news for me."

"Mostly. Chopper's inbound, but... you're in deep tree cover, yes?"

"Yes, why?" Jane pressed her fingers to Will's neck, counting. His pulse was fast and thready, and when she glanced down, his eyes had drifted shut. She patted his cheek sharply.

"Because the chopper can't land in trees. Topographic map is showing a hilltop clearing less than half a mile uphill from your current position- they'll have to land there."

Jane looked down at her teammate; he had given up the struggle to keep his eyes open and was lying almost too still on the forest floor. "He's not mobile."

"You'll have to get him mobile. They can't land any closer. They can bring a stretcher down to you, but if he's as bad as you're saying, the faster he can get loaded, the faster they can start to stabilize him."

There was a crashing in the brush and Jane whipped around, snapping her gun up. Ethan staggered out of the woods, scratched, red-faced and dripping sweat. He was wet from the waist down and there was an L-shaped rip in the sleeve of his shirt.

"I'm here, Benji. I'll help get him to the landing zone."

"ETA, ten minutes."

"Where have you been?" Jane asked sharply. She slung the pack over her shoulders and moved to Will's head while Ethan gave a quick once-over to his downed agent.

"I hit rough terrain and had to scale a cliff, and then the river was swifter than I expected. Brandt? Brandt, wake up."

"C'mon, Will, sit up." Jane patted his face again and he blinked.

"Ethan?"

"You drag me out here in the boondocks on my weekend off, the least you can do is stand up and greet me," Ethan said lightly.

Will frowned, his eyes already sliding shut again. "Okay, sorry..."

"Will, you're going to have to get up. We can brace you, but you have to help us out. The helicopter's on its way, but we have to get to its landing site." Jane slid one arm beneath his back.

Ethan reached to steady his shoulders, and they both lifted, Jane pushing from the back, Ethan pulling from the front. They got him half upright, and then his waist bent. Will cried out, a harsh guttural sound that tore from his throat. "Stop! Jesus, stop." His hand knotted, bloodless, on the hem of Jane's shirt as he fell back to the ground, shuddering.

Jane's and Ethan's eyes met over his body as they sat back on their heels. Will wasn't huge man, but he was sturdy, and solid with compact muscles. Too heavy to lift dead-weight from a prostrate position. Ethan dropped his eyes away from Jane and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

"_Agent Brandt!_" His sudden bellow made even Jane jump a little. "On your feet, Brandt! Your mission requires you to be mobile and you will damn well be mobile! _Now get on your feet!_"

"Yes, sir." Will snapped out an automatic response, and he struggled to rise. Ethan shifted on his heels and pulled, and Jane wrapped one hand in Will's belt, the other still supporting his back, and somehow they heaved him to his feet. He hung between them, panting, chin dropped to his chest, while Ethan bent at the knees and ducked beneath Will's arm. He gave a little jounce, settling the other man's weight across his upper body. Ethan nodded to Jane. "Now you."

She twisted her hand tighter on Will's belt and looped his other arm over her shoulders, taking some of his weight. He swayed between them, balanced on his left foot with his right barely scraping the ground. Ethan squared his shoulders and his voice sharpened once more. "You're going to stay upright, agent, and you're going to walk. You go down and _you will answer to me_. Clear?"

"Clear, sir."

Ignoring Jane's outraged stare, Ethan tipped his head forward. "_Move_."

They stumbled across the clearing and through the trees. Jane's hands were full of slumping agent and so she could only jerk her head in the direction of the pine trees. "That way."

Step by slow step, they crept up the hillside. Will tried, he did- but he kept buckling, and one or the other of them would have to dip a shoulder and catch him, propping him up for another half dozen dragging steps.

A heavy, rhythmic beat filled the air, growing louder by the second. "The medevac pilot is telling me he's approaching the coordinates now," Benji told them, and Jane, breathing nearly as hard as her teammate, nudged Will sharply with an elbow. "Hear that sound, Will? Chopper's coming. Not much further."

"Do. Not. Stop. You will keep those feet moving, agent," Ethan barked, but even he had a rasp beneath his harsh words.

Almost. Almost to the top. Jane was concentrating only on the incline in front of her, gritting her teeth against the strain, but she felt a sudden wind rush past her and lift sweaty strands of hair off her face. The trees lashed in the downdraft and she raised her eyes to the most welcome sight she could imagine- the gleaming white-and-blue sides of the helicopter dropping swiftly behind the last row of trees, its blades lashing the air.

"Tell them we're on the hillside!" Ethan was yelling into his comm. "Send them down to meet us..."

And then they burst from between the trees, two figures in dark blue flightsuits with a stretcher slung between them and coming at a fast jog. Jane could have howled with relief and Ethan was shouting, "Here! Over here!", although really, how could the medics miss them, three bedraggled figures linked together, stumbling up a remote hillside.

She felt Will's arm go limp around her neck at the same instant his entire body suddenly grew astonishingly heavier. He slid from her grasp and she tried to catch him, snatch him back, but he slithered to the ground like his bones had gone liquid. Jane knew there was no getting him on his feet again...

And then the medics were there, taking Will's slack body from Ethan's faltering hold, rolling him onto the stretcher. Jane fell to her knees, aching arms braced on the ground while they buckled him in. One motioned sharply and Jane forced herself back to her feet and took one of the handles while Ethan took another and they race-walked up the last few yards, bursting out of the trees to duck beneath the wash of the rotors and slide the stretcher into the helicopter.

She got a last glimpse of Will's face before one of the medics clapped an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Ethan had his hand wrapped around her elbow and was starting to boost her up onto the step, but the other medic made a sharp side-to-side gesture with one hand, warning them off as she leaned out to slam the door shut.

They both backed away, faces twisted away from the wash of air and debris; when the pine branches brushed their backs, the helicopter's rotors picked up speed with a rising scream. Jane could see only vague shapes moving through the reflective windows before it lifted in a rush of wind, hovered for a split second, then turned west, into the dazzle of the lowering sun.

Benji's voice was in their ears, telling them he had armed police swarming the entry hall and that the helicopter was outbound to Susquehanna Trauma Center and should he pack up, because the state boys were going to want jurisdiction...

Ethan wrapped his arm around Jane, pulling her in for a rough hug.

"Come on, Agent Carter. I think we're hiking out."

* * *

I think that you don't mess with Jane, either, when one of her team is threatened. Hope you enjoyed, I know I had a ridiculous amount of fun putting the screws to Poor Will!


	11. Epilogue

One last little bit of Will!whump, mixed with a bit of comfort.

* * *

_...baby! Where's my..._

_...food for thought, the slimy dickweasel..._

_...thanks you for your input, Agent, er..._

_...not too many good beach weekends..._

_...find my baby!_

_green eyes. malevolent little smirk. numbing cold vice grip skin-bones-nerves._

_oh. woman on the road- -daughter from the lodge._

_cicadas and blue sky and a van in a ditch..._

"Mmf. Actually quite good, scrapple. Are you sure you won't have a bite?"

"Stop waving it at me. I am not putting that in my mouth."

"It's spiced, fatty, fried pork product on buttered toast. What's not to like?"

"'Product'. There's the issue right there. It's awful."

"Now, offal is things like organs, and viscera. Scrapple is snouts and bits, so they tell me, so technically it's not offal..."

"I said awful, not offal, but my point stands. You don't eat something with 'snout' in the ingredients list."

"It's surprisingly good for nose, though."

"You come from a people who invented haggis, Benji. I don't think you're qualified to judge 'good'."

"Will you two stop? You're going to wake him up."

"I thought we wanted him awake now. In any case, he is- his breathing changed two minutes ago."

Will cracked his eyes open. At first he saw only a grey blur, hazed further by the screen of his eyelashes. Then he blinked heavy lids and the blur resolved into the soothing blue-grey wall of a hospital room, a silver bedrail, a soft white blanket drawn up to his waist. A line of tubing trailed down over his bare shoulder and terminated at a heavy swath of tape on the back of his hand.

Movement at the corner of his eye then, and the creak of vinyl chair cushions. He rolled his head- though it was more of a flop to the side- and met the gazes of his teammates, varying degrees of relief visible on their faces.

Now would be the time for a witty quip, something snappy to show an agent of the IMF might get knocked down but was never out of the game. Droll comebacks were a staple of the trade after all- look at James Bond.

"Hey," was what he croaked out.

"Hey yourself." Jane leaned forward and rested her hand in the curve between his neck and shoulder. She gave a little squeeze. "Welcome back."

"Good to be." Will worked his jaw, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth, and without prompting, Benji set down his sandwich and crossed to a wheeled bedtray that had been pushed to one side. Will heard the rattle and slosh of icewater being poured and then Benji was back, carrying a plastic tumbler with a straw poking from it. Will reached to take it and his hand stopped short. "Th' hell?" He tugged sharply, and with the other hand as well, but they stayed pinned neatly along the bedrails.

"Those can probably come off now." Ethan leaned around Jane with another creak of vinyl and Will felt fingers at his wrists. Light pressure he hadn't noticed eased, and rough cloth slid out from under his wrists.

"Restraints?" Will lifted his now-freed hand and flexed it; there was a pad of gauze taped to the heel of his hand, but it felt fine, if a little stiff.

"You took a swing at the resident who was trying to change your dressing," Ethan told him. His voice was stern but his mouth twitched, and he quickly turned aside to roll up the strips of gauze.

"I... don't remember." Will took a long drink and let his head fall back against the upraised head of the bed.

"You were pretty out of it," Benji said cheerfully. "Your hemoglobin counts were in the red zone, and what blood you managed to retain was swarming with bad stuff. Apparently you spent the last few days bleeding all over a Pennsylvania mountain in the _arse_-end of nowhere."

"That, I do remember." Will let his gaze wander over each of his teammates in turn- Benji, looking almost giddy now that it was safe to poke some irreverent fun; Ethan, trying to hide the relief in his eyes with a poker face and folded arms; and Jane, with the most openly relieved expression. "Thanks for finding me. You're going to have to tell me how the hell you did it."

"Well, my mom is thrilled that cross-stitch saved the day," Jane said.

"I may take it up," Benji added. "Now I know that _anything_ can be converted to a pattern."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Will ran his hand down to the layer of gauze taped across his stomach. "You mean I have stitches?"

"A few," Ethan said, "...hundred!" Benji broke in. "If we're keeping score, you're the frontrunner by far. Not that you'll be doing much running for a bit... okay, I'll stop," he finished, catching Jane's eye.

"The doctor said you should make a full recovery," Jane said, taking the empty cup from him and going over to refill it. She pushed the tray up to the bedside within easy reach. "You're going to feel like crap in the meantime, though."

"But you'll be up kicking _butt_ again in no time," Benji said, with a slight emphasis on the word 'butt'.

Will ignored him. He flicked his gaze over to Ethan, who had settled back in his chair and was toying idly with the rolled-up gauze. "Guess you're going to need to debrief me."

"Eventually." He nodded at the IV stand. "Once they wean you off the heavy-duty meds." Ethan smiled, a quick flash of white teeth in a darkly-stubbled face, the only sign he had been keeping a vigil. "I've been on those- answers don't always line up with the questions."

"Okay." Will shifted, with extreme care, holding his breath while he inched into a more comfortable position. He could feel the bulkiness of heavy gauze padding the side of his hip, and beneath it the sharp tug of stitches and tubes; he didn't pull the blanket back to check the damage, because he could also feel it covered nothing but bare skin. He subsided with a soft hiss between his teeth. "But I need to know- you got him, right? The guy running the operation?"

"We got him," Ethan confirmed. "His name is Salvatore DiSabatino. He has a bit of a background in 'Family enforcement', but we're still working out how he made the leap from mob work to human hunting excursions."

"He never gave me his name- called himself the Coordinator."

Jane snorted. "How very Pretentious Villain of him."

"There was a woman, too," Will said, fumbling for his water cup again. "She didn't deny being his daughter..."

"She's in custody, too. The feds have them both now, for kidnapping across state lines, just for starters."

_Green eyes. Panic, raw and convincing, over a nonexistent missing baby. The rush of ice when she gripped his hand._ Will set down the chilled tumbler. They'd lied- the memories were coming back, in jagged flashes. He supposed it had never mattered before if the toxin was permanent or not, because no one survived to put the claim to the test. "She tricked me good," he admitted.

"She tricked a lot of people over the years," Ethan said. "They've brought in cadaver dogs and ground-imaging equipment and are starting to find bodies. There's at least one dump site under a stone wall at the north edge of the property. Benji turned over the list of names we uncovered while tracking your disappearance, and the feds will compare DNA."

"There were at least a dozen," the tech told him soberly. "You lucked out, Will."

Will shook his head. There was still enough narcotic left in his bloodstream that he was starting to slide under again- his vision was beginning to tunnel out. Even so, the bullet wound was making its presence felt again, and he shifted restlessly from the building ache. "Wasn't luck. Was 'cuz you guys came through for me."

Benji brightened. "Well, when your _arse_ is on the line, your team will jump in to save it. It's kind of our specialty."

"That, and butt jokes." Will shifted again, finding it increasingly difficult to get comfortable. "How long 'til you get it out of your system?"

"At least three missions worth. I propose that we use planets whenever possible, and that Will's codename from now on is 'Moon'. Or we could go with train cars- Engine, Sleeper, Tanker, and, of course, Caboose."

Jane tried to hide a grin. "I think someone needs a nap, and it's not just Will." She bent down and brushed a kiss onto his forehead. "We'll go back to the hotel and grab a shower and something to eat and come back to see you later. You need anything in the meantime?"

"Pizza. Pants."

Jane let the smile bloom across her face. "When you can stay awake for longer than ten minutes without turning grey and sweating, I'll bring you a large ultra-loaded."

"Thanks, Jane. Benji."

"You bet. Feel better soon- I know it's hard being the _butt_ of a joke, but..."

"Take him out," Ethan groaned. He caught Jane's eye as she herded Benji toward the hallway. "And send in a nurse, would you?"

The door closed behind them, cutting off Benji's remark, "You know, if you're hungry, I know a diner down the street that serves up some great scrapple..."

Will tried to push up onto his left side, wanting to ease the insistent throb that now gripped his right side from ribcage to knee. His arms didn't want to cooperate, but the drugs weren't enough to combat the pain, only to make him clumsy. He gave up and sank back, rolling his head slowly to focus blearily on Ethan. The other man had subsided back into the chair with the air of someone planning to remain for a while.

"Y' don't need to stay. When th' nurse comes in, I'm gonna ask her for another dose an' it'll probably put me back under."

Ethan stretched out his legs and folded his hands on his stomach. "Not a problem," he said quietly. "Your job is to take it easy and heal. _My_ job- is to keep watch so you can."

Distantly, Will heard the door open again, and Ethan telling someone that the meds were wearing off and Agent Brandt needed another dose. He heard the muted click and crinkle of IV bags being switched and a moment later the flush of morphine swept aside the gnawing pain.

He was sinking under again. For a moment, he fought against the beckoning darkness- too much could happen while he was unconscious. And then he heard the reassuring creak of vinyl as Ethan settled in for the duration, and knew someone had his back, and he could rest.

* * *

the end

My dad grew up in the Philadelphia area, and scrapple was a big part of my childhood. I think it's delicious, but you don't want to think too hard about what's in it.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who read, who commented, and who gave this story a chance. And a shout-out to niagraweasel, who inspired me to expand on some of the ideas I had.

Until next time, when inspiration strikes and compels me to whump one of Jeremy Renner's fine, fine characters!


End file.
